Ben Silverman

For the second time on the podcast, Brian gets to pick the brain of the brilliant Ben Silverman, visionary executive producer behind The Office, Ugly Betty, Jane the Virgin, The Biggest Loser, and many more. He talks about his childhood being raised by theater and television in Manhattan, the disappointment of attaining his childhood dream, breaking into new fields in media, and he even gives Brian some Japanese lessons.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I made that show for Amazon in its early days,
and it was so Janet was so cuckoo about the
sex and was so aggressive about the kind of craziness
of that world and the strange behavior that he saw

(00:23):
in the paris of that moment, and I got seduced
by it, and I was like, Okay, Yeah, maybe there's
a large audience for this. The initial reaction of the
Amazon Prime mom who watched that show was I'm not
only I mean that show could have taken Amazon down.
It was that bad choice and that wrong of an

(00:47):
environment to put that show him. My name is Ben Silverman,
and I am a media entrepreneur and the executive producer
of the Office.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well well, well if it isn't another episode of Off
the Beat with yours truly, your host, Brian Baumgartner today, Yep,
there you go. I'm talking to the big man, the
giant donkey, the creator, the guy who started it all.
Well he started for me at least, Ben Silverman is

(01:25):
here on the program now. Ben. He may not be
on your television screen all that often, but he is
almost always behind it in some way, lurking in the corner.
The fact that he created the Office is just the tip.
That's what she said, just the tip of what he

(01:46):
has accomplished in the entertainment industry. He is the co
CEO of Propagate Content, the production company behind this very
podcast and many other shows. He was also the chairman
of NBC Entertainment. He founded production companies including revelly An Electus,
and he has created and executive produced many many shows

(02:06):
that you know and love, The Office, The Biggest Loser, Ugly,
Betty Jane, The Virgin, The Tutors, Charmed, Untold, many many more.
The last time I talked to him, at least on tape,
was a few years ago when I was putting together
my first podcast and oral history of the Office. If
you haven't listened to that, go listen to it. It's
almost an audio reunion of everyone who worked on the Office.

(02:32):
Or you can scroll all the way back on this
podcast to March of twenty twenty one, when I released
my extended conversation with Ben about the Office. Wow, I
cannot believe I've been doing this that long. I guess
it's true what they say, time flies when you're talking
to incredible people every week. Anyway, this time I wanted

(02:55):
to talk with Ben about the other parts of his life,
his career, his empire. He's a brilliant creative mind, a
super smart businessman, and well he's just a really interesting dude.
You're gonna see what I mean pretty quickly, Ladies and gentlemen,
always the smartest guy in the room, Ben Silverman.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Bubble and squeak. I love it, Bubble and Squeakna bubble
and squeak. I could get every mole lift over from
the night before.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Kaneti wah, Ella, Kaneti wah. You're in Japan. I understand.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I am in Japan as we speak. It's it's early
morning here. But I'm thrilled to be talking to you,
my California brother.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Uh, that's what you say, right, I've never been to Japan.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
You. Luckily, we have insulted everyone in the world through
our collaboration and television show, and I am doing it
incredibly efficiently as I wander these streets getting grinned at
all day long. But I'm I am very I can
mons moss and there's many great Japanese expressions. Yes, kanichiwa

(04:33):
is hello, but they don't use that as much as
you'd expect.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Is that like Domo Arigato do.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
That's a good well Aragatos, thank you, thank you more.
And I have absolutely been in a couple of bowing
battles like I always go for the last bow and
you know, you could get five six, seven bows going,
just like reled it in our show as as much
scot and it is incredibly amusing to me as it's

(05:07):
playing out, and I feel like I'm in some kind
of scripted you know, comedy but right, but my fellow
Bauer is not quite And now, because you know, I've
been doing this for a week, initially in business meetings
where you know, business cards are presented to me like
their their you know, gold, I mean, I'm just like, oh,

(05:31):
can you enter your number in my phone? And it's
like almost an insult. And then secondarily, I am loving
the language like I have been trying to learn it,
and it's not that hard to pronounce. It's it's impossible
to read because we just don't know the characters right.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Now, obviously, you are the international adapter slash creator of
foreign content for America. Are you watching television to find
the next great hit?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
I have been watching a ton of television and trying
to actually land some ip, but I am failing mercilessly. Here,
there's a reason the Korean content has exported so well
because they're down to work with us, and they're excited
to export their content and they are thrilled to have partners.

(06:24):
Not so much here. There's not a lot of there's
not a lot of yes, I would love to watch
this do well. Outside of my borders, they're much there's
much more focus on like it's actually beautiful. I mean,
they're just there's focus on doing something the best, but
not necessarily the most efficiently or at scale or to

(06:47):
be monetized in the same way. So it's just a
different culture in terms of its desire to export.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, you know that actually occurs to me I and
then we're going to talk more about you. But you know,
you see like on YouTube or whatever, you do see
like some Korean television even not just remade, but like content.
You don't see a lot of Jeopardy. Is there a
lot of like scripted original content in Japan.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
It's it's not nearly the level of the Korean content
in terms of the scripted content. On the nonscripted side,
it's there's so much of it, and there's a lot
of it in categories that would work, but they're not
as formated like food travel. You know, they do a
lot of the kind of genres that we do in

(07:37):
American television, but they're so specifically Japanese. There's not as
much of a format to it to adapt, and there's
so much crazy popping up all over the screens that
you know, the entire country, you know, gives you a
little PTSD as you navigate through it. If you remember
years ago, there was a television show and half the

(08:00):
audience fainted watching it in Japan because of the amount
of stuff going on screen. And you feel like that
walking through Tokyo. You feel like that in the subway,
and you feel like that watching the shows. There's like
thousands of words popping up all over the screen in
different colors, and then there's always like somebody like entering

(08:20):
the screen laughing, and then there's somebody in costume, and
you know, it's highly original and highly confusing and therefore
not quite as very specific, yeah, not quite as effective.
The Wall Came From Here, which was a adapt betame show,
and there's a couple other things like that. But it's
not England, it's not Korea, it's not you know a

(08:43):
lot of the other markets that are so strong exactly.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, Well, enough about Japan. I want to talk. I
want to go back with you. I know you were
born in Massachusetts, but really grew up in Manhattan an
artistic family. Your dad, Stanley, who I know and love
so well, a composer, your mom an actor and network executive.

(09:11):
So was the arts? Was television? Was entertainment? Was it
focused on in your household growing up? Or was that
their job? And you were just you know, running the
streets of Manhattan.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
The arts were an integral part of my upbringing. You know,
it was no question that through us Moses, I was
exposed to some of the great minds of the latter
half of the twentieth century and the artistic community. My
father collaborated with everyone from Leonard Bernstein to Anthony Burgess

(09:44):
to Arthur Miller. And I ran around the halls of
Lincoln Center and various you know, chamber music calls and
exposure to music. And my mom was actually a theater
producer and collaborator of my dad's early on before they
divorced at age four. My being aged four because my

(10:04):
mom realized she was gay, and so that can end
a marriage quickly and they talked about it all the time.
And then my father's second marriage which also ended. No,
you know not because they don't still love each other.
As my dad always says, I'm the great ex husband

(10:25):
because he's still best friends with both of his ex wives.
But my Stepmam Martha was also a brilliant violinist, so
I would be exposed to it all and I would
hear it and Thuusmosis would be connected to everything from
Shakespeare to Brahms, and it absolutely gave me a great foundation.

(10:47):
But it also made me more ambitious in what was
possible within the arts and creativity because I saw how
much they struggled financially and how difficult it was to
get their work heard and seen. Only recently has my
dad had his biggest hits hit. In celebration, my father's

(11:08):
new album just came out as he's eighty four years old,
his first album probably twenty five thirty years and he
has a collaboration with Sting on it right now, which
is great, So all of you should download in celebration
my Stanley Silverman, and so he was like performing above
a you know, his stuff was happening above a church

(11:30):
in some weird downtown art space, and you know, I
was like, wait, wait, this isn't fun. I want this
to be I want the world to see my stuff, right.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
I mean, you talked about so many of these collaborations.
Were you present with these great minds and artists and
with your mom in her business. Were you seeing these
people and knowing who they were? I mean you brought
up Arthur Miller for example.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
Yes, absolutely. One of my dad's collaborations with Arthur was
up from Paradise, and I would you know, they were divorced.
So my dad was working. When I saw my dad,
I was where he was working, because you know, he
worked at night, you know, he was inside these theaters
and music halls. And so I walked into a screen

(12:18):
door at Arthur Miller's house in Connecticut. I hung out
with Joe Papp, the artistic director and founder of the
Public Theater. I you know, met and played with Michael
Tilson Thomas arguably the greatest conductor of the modern era.
So these people were all in around my world. My
mom collaborated with Tommy toone, you know. So it was

(12:40):
just how I grew up, you know, it was part
of my rhythm and I was the ultimate latch key
kid because of it. You know, I was kind of
I was raised by the arts, but I was also
raised by wolves a little bit. You know. I walked
to school alone at age four in New York City
and had to kind of manage for myself. But it

(13:02):
is also where I fell in love with television because
as the ultimate latch key kid, TV was my babysitter.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Well that makes sense. Do you think that that independence
that you had early on, do you think that gave
you a toughness?

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Like?

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Do you think that gave you an independence? I mean,
do you feel that? Do you acknowledge that?

Speaker 1 (13:22):
I really do, And we obviously were both parents of
young kids, you and I and I do see the
absolute shift in how we raise our children. At the
end of the day, love conquers all. And my parents
loved me so much and we are so close and

(13:42):
they are the two smartest people I know. And I
absolutely feel their love, which gives you another form of confidence.
And felt their belief in me as a kid and
then as a young man. But no question, you're walking
the streets in New York City as a four year old,
You're pretty comfortable as an eighteen year old. I remember

(14:04):
arriving at arriving at university and these and the kids
from the suburbs were all getting hammered and you know,
doing kegstands, and I was like, you idiots where you know,
I'm going to the city, you know, like you know,
its just my kind of attitude and energy around. It
absolutely was grounded in my self reliance, you know. So
my mom would leave for the weekend so she could

(14:26):
live her life. She knew I didn't really want to
deal with that fact until later on when I could
understand it and synthesize it. And I would be handed
between ten and twenty dollars for the weekend and basically
was left alone in my apartment. And as I walked
to school, she was very good and knew the ways

(14:49):
to keep me safe. Though. When I walked to school
as a kid, you know, basically a post toddler, she
would just say, Okay, if you feel scared at all,
look for a doorman. And if you don't find a doorman,
look for a mother with a stroller or children. And
if you don't find a doorman or a mother with

(15:11):
a stroller or children, look for a man in a
suit and those were like my guardrails. But that's good.
That's good advice, I guess. So.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I mean, it's so impossible to believe. I don't know
if we've talked about this or not, but I look,
I love my life here in California, and I love
New York. I love I love it. I love to
visit and go there in short spurts. But I have
thought often and talked about I don't know if I

(15:44):
could get a show there for a year or something
like before the kid get too old, that going there
and having them have that experience of being on the
streets of New York exactly what you're talking about now.
I don't know about letting them walk to school alone
or whatever, but just that feeling of being around so

(16:07):
many people and having to kind of learn your way,
and there's a certain toughness that it has to bring
to you as a child to be navigating that city.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
So I had two bikes stolen and I got my
jaw broken. Yeah, those are the downsides, but no question,
and one big thing I always felt about New York
is it's a city that is integrated in how everyone
has to utilize the city in the same way. It's
absolutely changed and the world has changed. You would never

(16:36):
let your kid walk to school alone at age four
because somehow the manifestation of bad people is just like accelerated.
But I always felt when about California and I love
it is if you have any means, or even just
a car, you kind of move in your car between
place to place, never touching the society at large. In

(16:59):
New York, we all were taking the same subway, we're
all taking the same bus, we're all walking the same streets.
We were all integrated, whether whatever class or you place
you came from, which is very different than California, where
you're kind of being shuttled around in your car cocoon
between one bastion of your own community to another place

(17:22):
in your own community and not touching the community at large,
whereas in New York, you're literally on the subway together,
you're in the park together, you're on the streets together,
you're on the bus together, and so you're exposed and
through that exposure, you learn and you also tolerate each
other in a different way because you're kind of living

(17:43):
the same life, even if at the end of the
day you go to the penthouse or the twelfth floor,
and somebody else is going to the basement. The experience
the rest of the day is shared.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, that's very that's very smart. I see you studied
history at TOUGHS. So what was it about history or
what did you think? What direction did you feel like
your life was going to go.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
I always wanted to be in showbiz, but I also
had considered being in the Foreign service and working in
international relations, and so I was looking at a degree
that could give me a basis for anything. And I
truly believe in the liberal arts education in a profound way,

(18:32):
and felt that the liberal arts education is the best
foundation to understand the stories that took place in reality,
which is history, and to understand the stories that took
place in creativity through like English classes and art history
and other modes of expression. Were really important to me,

(18:56):
and with advice from my family to to study that
way and not pursue an economics degree or a business degree,
and it sets you up for anything you wanted to do.
I happened to be fascinated with history. I played with
toy soldiers growing up. I had two uncles who served
in World War Two, Lester and Davy. I had a

(19:18):
lot of connectivity in my world to what came before me,
and it absolutely was something that interested me. It's partially
you know, I created the Tutors about Henry the Eighth,
which was a big hit on Showtime and around the
world and still airs and other shows like that, including

(19:39):
Marco Polo because of my connectivity to history. So it
absolutely helped inform my creative process. But it truly gave
me a great foundation for anything and would work well
if I chose a different career also, but you know,
from a very young age, I knew I wanted to
go into show business.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Ye, So that brings me to my next question. But
I do have to say, you know, when I go
now and I'm talking to young actors or at universities
or whatever, that is one of the major pieces of
advices that I give to young actors, which is have
a broad base of education. If you just are studying

(20:20):
acting or theater, you don't have that sort of world
perspective that exactly what you said I feel like a
liberal arts college brings. And truly it's one of the
reasons that I made the decision, you know, to not
go to a school like Juilliard or Carnegie Mellon or
with that, with all respect to those schools, I wanted.

(20:41):
I wanted that liberal arts experience. So I think that's
really smart for you. Like when were you like this
is what I'm going to do. Because you are a
creative person, you came from a creative family. But when
was the decision for you made that you wanted to
work in entertainment. You wanted to produce, and you and
you wanted to lead and create, but from a non

(21:03):
creative side, not that you're not creative, but that you
wanted to manage and run television.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Well, I think there was a couple of touch points
that really impacted me. One is going to the movies
and just being in the movies, and specifically as a
young kid going to the Regency, which was an old
cinema in New York City on Broadway that played old movies,
and I fell in love with Fred Astaire as a

(21:30):
young kid and would dance in the aisles as Fred
would dance on screen. And so I had this kind
of connectivity as a very young boy, you know, in
my four or five six year old kind of brain space.
Then subsequently watching NBC in the eighties and what Brandon

(21:50):
Tartakoff unleashed with Saint Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues and
The Cosby Show and very specifically Cheers, my favorite show
of all time at that moment in time, and seeing
all of that and wanting to kind of understand it.
And then there was an article that came out in
New York Magazine about Brandon Tartakoff, and I read that
article and I really got excited about who he was

(22:14):
and what he did and how he got there. I
knew he went to Yale, I knew he played baseball,
I knew how he started and arrived there, and I
thought that was an unbelievably interesting guy and job and trajectory.
And then separately from that, I started to kind of
try and learn on my own. Like I was very

(22:35):
good at math, and so my sixth grade at Rhode
of Sholham Day School in New York City, I didn't
have to go to the regular math class. I was
kind of put in my own math class with one
other kid, David Kart, And I remember I chose to
write and work on statistics and understand ratings. So in

(22:56):
the sixth grade I was doing a project on rats
instead of going to regular math class. And so I
kind of knew, you know, and I was trying to
figure out ways to know. But reading about Brandon showed me, oh,
there's a job like that. Watching television showed me how

(23:17):
much I loved it, and going to the cinema and
you know, showed me how much I loved it. And
then seeing my family in the arts, but struggle in
the arts also made me want to be more of
a mogul than a kind of artiste. And okay, okay,
and I really wanted my stuff seen. I was like,
whatever I do, I wanted to be watched and consumed.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah that makes sense. I mean the crazy thing. And
we've talked about this before, by the way, if you
if you haven't noticed so far, this is how you
can never win an argument with Ben Silverman. He remembers
every name. I mean, the names that you're pulling out
from sixth grade. I mean, it's unbelievable. But you as
a child, which is what I wanted to touch on it,

(24:03):
just at least briefly, how crazy it is you wanted
to be the chairman of NBC. Like it's such a
specific dream and such an ah Like I don't know.
I just find it so fascinating that every step in
your life, which of course eventually you got there spoiler

(24:25):
alert like that that happened at such a young age,
and you were able to see the impact that you
could have, not necessarily, as you said, being a creative
like your parents, who you saw struggle.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yes, and you have to manifest. You have to manifest,
and you have to keep marching towards whatever it is
you want to accomplish, and you have to really dare
to dream. You know, my mom would always say, you're
the boy. If I locked you in a closet by accident,
you would have come out telling me how great the
dark was. So you need to find your path and

(25:04):
your enthusiasm and your happiness and whatever is presented to you,
because it's everything is.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
So damn hard.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
You better enjoy the ride or be able to kind
of find your way to it. One thing, even further,
that was crazy. When I got to college at Toughs,
which I loved and was a great, great environment for me,
I wrote a paper in a creative writing class there,
and my paper, the best thing I ever wrote, was

(25:33):
all about this young kid getting an internship in Hollywood,
and then he meets Brandon Tartakoff in the paper I
wrote about it, and that Brandon, well really likes the
kid and connects to the kid, and then and then
the kid gets gets hired and he makes it. And
then by the end, the kind of the end of

(25:54):
it is isy and he no longer returns Madonna's phone calls.
That was that was That was like the entire trajectory
of my, you know, twenty year old self's creative writing project.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
So it came true, except now it's it's Correl's phone calls.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
I'll always I'll always return Toil's focus.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Something I saw that I never put together before. First off,
you were an agent at William Morris and we've talked
about that before and the impact that that had. But Ben,
obviously or not obviously, Ben started Creative Revelly, which was
the production company behind the office. I didn't realize how
close it was to the office, Like were you starting

(27:01):
revillly as you began those early conversations with Gervais. I'd
never put this together.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well, I had awareness of the office while working at
William Morris, okay, and then basically did it all so
quickly as I moved into the same office building on
a different floor with my crew of assistants who I

(27:31):
had been slowly promoting or quickly promoting inside William Morris,
and went to work on the things I had wanted
to do myself while at William Morris. And knew that
they would end up ruining in the way they would
have approached it. You know, even like Greg Daniels wasn't

(27:54):
represented by William Morris, and I knew if I brought
the office into William Morris, someone would force only a
William Morris client into it. I knew that there was
going to be a lot of things that would destroy
I didn't have the rights, I didn't have the conversation
with Ricky until I was independent. None of that had

(28:15):
played out. It just happened quickly the moment it was
quickly out. And same with the restaurant, the show I
created while in William Morris. My first phone calls on
the restaurant were made at William Morris, and then I
left to go do the work and begin the process
at large. And that was a rapid fire thing.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
I mean, that all so crazy, that that happened so fast,
that's so crazy. Founded in two thousand and two, Ben
created the US adaptation of the Office. Obviously epeed many
other shows like The Restaurant he just mentioned, Biggest Loser, Ugly,
Betty Date, My Mom, and many many more. What was

(28:57):
it for you about acquiring rights to these shows that
existed elsewhere and bringing them to the United States. What
was the magic What would you describe, humbly, of course,
as the magic sauce, the magic potion that you had
or tried to put on to make these shows palatable

(29:20):
for a US audience.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, one of it was like seeing something and connecting
to how it would apply to the American vernacular, like
watching The Office. The Office actually felt informed by American
office life. It was just done in a very British way,
you know, somewhat sadder, somewhat more pessimistic, and somewhat somewhat

(29:46):
more uncomfortable than our show was done. I always talked
about it as kind of the CPA version, and we
though had office life at scale and had a sense
of drudgery in our American offices as well, that it
would relate to you know, instantaneously, the word is the same, right,

(30:08):
it HiT's the office in both cultures. In other shows
I had to kind of identify where and how they
would translate, like what made sense for those ideas to
work inside the United States. And then there were some
that should have been created in America but just happened

(30:28):
to have started overseas, which I saw as an agent,
like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Like that is
the quintessential American show. It just happened to be created
by a brit for the British market and obviously worked
everywhere in the world. But as I thought about the
specific shows, there were some things that I knew would

(30:49):
never work. You know, there were shows about a rural
pastor or something that raised sheeap in the English countryside
that was going to be like a harder adaptation to
find and kind of dial in. And then there were
ones that you just knew, right with the right take,
the right vision, the right location, the right team, this

(31:12):
could really pop and connect on a human level and
on a conceptual level to a larger American audience than
the smaller international audience that had seen it. A lot
of that changed as those shows started to be seen
on the streamers now, but at that time there was
no outlet for the original material, so no one even

(31:35):
was familiar with them.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Right now, I feel like you have an inate ability
to see the universality of certain either formats or subject
matters that can apply. And I feel like with the
Office specifically, it's just a conversation that I had with
both Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who said essentially the

(31:58):
same thing, which one us they felt like mistakes were
made in the past on English shows brought to the
US because the English creators kept holding on sort of
for dear life with their fingernails and trying to say no, no, no,
it's got to be like this, this is how we

(32:19):
did it, This is how we did it. Whereas Ricky
and Steven they feel like their greatest contribution was to say,
Greg Daniels and Ben Silverman understand America way better than
we do. They understand American television way better than we do.
Let's let them take the format and adapt it in
a way that makes sense there. But I feel like

(32:42):
you have sort of an innate ability to see all
of those steps when just taken with the original material.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well and like and as a young as a young man,
a young precocious man, in that process, I remember having
to live with that and deal with many people whose
shows I felt were so adaptable and incredible and insisting
that it was the same cast and the same writer

(33:12):
adapting them. And then I'm like, well, why do it right?
You know, why adapt it? And in fact, you don't
know the intricacies of our language. You know the intricacies
of your language. You don't know the style of our humor.
You know the style of your humor, and you're going
to ruin it. And sometimes, like with great sex, you
need to lose control, you know, And that was you know,

(33:34):
like there's there are moments where you just have to
let it happen. And yeah, this was absolutely the case
with Ricky and Steven, where they were like, we love
what we did. We liked you and the vision you
have for this, so go for it. We'll give you
everything you need and we'll explain everything we did. But

(33:57):
then it's yours to run with. And they were not
around set. They were not you know, looking over our shoulder,
They were not second guessing us. They were embracing us.
And I think, as I also told them, they would
make a lot more money, do you know, from our
show than they ever would from theirs. And many more episodes.

(34:19):
And I always said for fans of the original Office,
you will only have twelve episodes no matter how you
cut it. You know, we have two hundred and twelve
right now.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
That's right, and I think significantly for you, you know,
with of course, all due respect to all of the
other creative people that worked on the show. You know,
it's also that little sixth grader with karp got I
remember the name that you know, we're studying ratings and
statistics and ratings percentages. You know. Having an understanding of

(34:55):
the business of American television is also part of it.
I mean, the creatives have to make certain decisions that
enable the show to go two hundred and twelve episodes,
obviously with your input, but having a sense of how
do we serialize this, how do we make this go
for twenty four to thirty episodes a year for nine

(35:20):
ten years, that's a big part. All right. So here's
my question. Because you have had amazing success in terms
of looking into the future and people going what the fuck, Ben,
that's insane, what are you talking about? That's insane, and
you finding a way to make it work. Here's my question.
I want to hear at least one. But I want

(35:41):
to hear an example of something where in the end
you say to yourself, what was I thinking like that
that could never work? Like what what is an idea
or a show that you had that did not pan
out well?

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Had obvious failure? One of them, One of them that
I made was Casanova with Jean Pierre Jeannet, which was
in my kind of what I thought would be my
trilogy of tutors and Marco Polo, and then I would
do Casanova in France. Jean Pierre Janet is incredible director,
and I made that show for Amazon in its early days,

(36:25):
and it was so Janet was so cuckoo about the
sex and was so aggressive about the kind of craziness
of that world and the strange behavior that he saw
in the Paris of that moment, and I got seduced

(36:48):
by it, and I was like, Okay, yeah, maybe maybe
there's a large audience for this. The initial reaction of
the Amazon Prime mom who watched that show was I'm
not only I mean, that show could have taken Amazon down.
It was that bad choice and that wrong of an

(37:08):
environment to put that show, you know, And I really
really didn't understand the environment Amazon, which is now like
so kind of almost puerile, and the kind of content
that makes to service its you know, giant toilet paper
buying audience. And then and then I didn't understand that

(37:30):
Depravity was not for everyone. So that that was a massive,
sad mistake that I made and wrong place wrong. I
kind of thought premium content could push the envelope further
than it had with sopranos and Peters and no, there's
an end. There's an end to that. There's a time out,

(37:54):
time out bill. That's one step too far. I don't mind.
I don't mind Henry the Eighth getting a blowjob, but
you know this is one step two podcasts.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
What makes me laugh really is just like, oh, one
of your shows built Netflix and the other one almost
killed him.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Like that.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
That is now. That's now how I'm gonna think of it.
So why did you sell Revee?

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Because I got name chairman of NBC and when absolutely
the biggest mistake of my life.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Pure taking taking taking the job or selling Revee or I.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Had to sell Reveale because of the job. I shouldn't
have had the childhood desire to run NBC, because had
I continued with revee I would own an island somewhere
and be Richard Branson level wealthy or whatever it is.

(38:53):
I I that company and what I saw coming and
the content I had ready to go behind. It was
so good, and I was so on fire and so
beloved and so the bit boy wonder kind that it

(39:14):
had every bit of momentum. And two years later, the
woman who bought my company sold it for seven times
the amount I sold it to her for. So it
was it was clearly undersold. I sold it on a
phone call. I didn't even take it to market. I
literally was like so naive about it. I'm like, sure,

(39:34):
you know what, you can buy it? What do you
think it's worth? Okay, fine, you know, like that's a
lot of money. And had no idea how valuable it
was and how unique it was and how extraordinary it
was in that amount of time to create the Biggest Loser,
the Tutors, Ugly Betty and The Office, let alone the

(39:56):
twenty other shows. I pioneered with my team and partner
or Howard Owens, the transformation of advertising supplied content. I
was becoming the leader in digital content. I knew streaming
was coming. I was working with Microsoft. I was working
with the early technologists as they wanted to figure out
content to define themselves. I was inside every outlet at

(40:20):
a premium, a one level, and my creative juices were
so sharp, So that was a huge mistake. But I
did it because I had a childhood fantasy of running NBC.
I didn't expect an economic crisis. I didn't expect General
Electric to be in the process of selling it, and

(40:41):
I didn't expect a writer's strike that was also a
screen actors Guild strike. And I certainly didn't expect that
there would be one journalist who wanted to take me
down because I looked like I was having fun.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well, yeah, I mean, look, it's impossible to feel bad
for you. Number one. I hope you understand that it's impossible,
because you have lived everyone's fantasy, and I think including
I don't know someone like Leonardo DiCaprio, but I understand
what you're saying. But it's so fascinating that pull, that

(41:18):
drive to what you saw what you saw as what
you wanted as a young child and as a medium child,
to have the opportunity to accomplish that. And maybe there
was another choice that would have been better. But that's
very interesting, Yeah, that you regret that you found it
Electus in two thousand and nine did a variety of

(41:42):
shows there, including Jane the Virgin. Eventually with the aforementioned
Howard t Owens, you found an chair Propagate Entertainment, which
now runs Electus as well as Artists First and Big
Breakfast and Authentic Management, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(42:05):
What do you feel like you can do now with
Propagate that you couldn't before.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, part of it now that I'm really excited about
is what's going on in the brand creation led by
talent and IP relationship to audience. And just like we
collaborated and partnered up to open up new mediums like podcasting,
we have also been able to take the IP of

(42:31):
a podcast turn it into a book. And you know,
finding and seeding our own IP is something I'm really
excited about. Before it was all about traveling the world
to find the IP. Now there are opportunities to seed
our own IP through these new forms and modalities of expression.
And I also am loving and have been incredibly focused

(42:55):
on and saw the kind of transformation that we're going
through in brand create and you know, obviously George clooneyan
one of my best friends, Mike Meldman's you know Cassa
Amigos and what they did together, and what Ryan Reynolds
has done in basically every category in the world. I mean,
he's like the modern actor Warren Buffett in his life

(43:17):
in the stuff that he's pursuing and creating. And then
so many other examples Leonardo Dicaprian all birds, like all
these touch points of where celebrity and direct relationship to
audience are unlocking. Brand creation has been amazingly interesting to me,
both for the curiosity and where brands are also culture. Now,

(43:40):
you know, you are what you wear, you are what
you eat. And I'm working with Cedric the entertainer and
Anthony Anderson, who I absolutely adore and are brilliant, brilliant
collaborators and comedians and entertainers and men, and we have
launched a product called AC Barbecue and it's been a

(44:02):
absolute labor of love. And we have just recently launched
in twenty three hundred walmarts, and we'll be expanding across
the nation with our you know, our flavor profiles and
our and our various product lines and ac Barbecue comes
from Anthony and Cedric's authentic love of food, as they

(44:22):
call themselves handsome and husky, which is in a category
you could fit in there, Bry, and they have absolutely
invested in it because they see it as well as
a way to connect further with their audience, deliver on
something they love and care about, and grow a business
because it's a lot harder to monetize traditional content in

(44:46):
today's you know, media ecosystem, but it's much easier to
directly connect to your consumer and audience in today's ecosystem.
So focusing on that has been a real exciting chapter.
And the company we've built to propagate is the perfect
vehicle to do that. And it's something I'm very excited

(45:10):
about and loving and is highly rewarding in the same
way it's rewarding to turn on the television and see
your show, it's rewarding to see your product in a store.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. That idea of entertainment and content
being yeah, what you eat, what you wear, what you drank,
what people consume.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah. I talk about like the three c's. I talk
about where culture and content create commerce, you know, And
that's like a big flywheel for me. It's like, you know,
how how do you create culture and how do you
turn it into commerce? And at the center of it
is content.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
With celebrity, which brings consumption. Boom five the five I
trademark with the second two.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
With the bb himself come to five.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
You talked a little You just mentioned this a little bit.
You and I, well, I mean we're partners. There's no
other way around it. This podcast here, as you all know,
produced by Ben and Propagate. And first of all, Oral
History of the Office. Were you happy with the Oral
History of the Office and how that came out about?

Speaker 1 (46:48):
I was so happy with it, Brian one. You are
so talented and thoughtful and so intellectual, not just so funny.
And I keep going and and all those years of
chugging cigarettes and Jim Beam have really made the greatest
voice in podcasting.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
And I don't know what you mean by the way,
Jim Beamer, I don't know what he's.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
He doesn't drink Brown Royal, but just either way, Jim
Beams sounds funnier. But it made me so happy also
because what surprised me about it really was the reaction
of all of the people involved with the office to
this moment ten years later to kind of talk about

(47:34):
the show and reconnect, and we had kind of splintered
off like the show ended, and we all went on
our own journeys and paths, and we're happy with the
equity and success that that show had given us for
the rest of our lives in terms of the ability
to have that as part of our resumes. Right, it
is the most popular show arguably now in the history

(47:58):
of television, and uniquely one that has remained its relevancy
generation to generation that I've never seen before. But bringing
us all back together provided a real emotional thing I
didn't expect, and seeing everyone's willingness to participate and talk

(48:20):
about it and share their stories about the origin story
was highly rewarding. And as people ask me about it,
I go, if you want to learn how culture is created,
if you want to learn what it takes to make
a hit show, this is the best textbook in history
around the architecture of television.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, I mean well said. I think the other thing
that the show was bigger than it was when it
was on the air and continued to get bigger and bigger,
which I think necessarily brought us all back together. I
mean that was I think the reason for the excitement
for some of the emotion, because that, to me, that's

(49:05):
the thing that had never happened before. The uniqueness of that,
I think was a huge part of it as well.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
And so rewarding to us because while we were making it,
we knew we were making the best comedy on television.
We knew it in our guts. We understood how adventurous
it was and how outright funny. It was something that
is lost in modern comedy. And I felt so validated personally,

(49:33):
as did everybody involved, that it found its audience eventually,
and I think we all felt a little ripped off
while it was on air that it wasn't as validated,
and so to share in that moment, as you describe it,
Brian as brilliant, because it was that Wow they figured

(49:56):
it out. Wow they loved it right, you know, isn't
this cool? Like we did. We didn't go. We weren't
driving around in limos and spraying champagne on each other
every every Friday morning. After the show aired on Thursday.
It took us ten years later and we were all
splintered out into a million different plays I was basically
like bizarre, Like I didn't enjoy as much while it

(50:18):
was happening as I do after it has happened. And
if I'm on an airplane and someone sits next to
me and ask me what I do, I just say
I produced the Office. I don't even talk about anything else.
There's like there's nothing else inside the whole thing that
I talk about. You know, I can go into it
for a second or third question, and there are clear

(50:41):
ugly Betty fans and Jane the Virgin fanatic, sure, and
untold lovers. But I'm just like, I've produced the Office,
and that's like kind of like my baton drop. By
the way, baton drop is the worst thing I've ever said.
I meant the mic drop the baton drop. My tire
relay got lost. We finished in ninth place. We didn't

(51:01):
even finish the race. But you can no one dropped
the baton. I just want to know we're keeping this in.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
I had literally transitioned to my next question and did
not hear the words baton. I don't know where that
most amazing thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
That's Japanese get lag ladies and gentlemen. That is Japanese
get leg is by far the worst get lag I
have ever had. So you just watch it play out.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
I do have to ask you, I want your candor here.
In two thousand and eight, while you're chairman of NBC,
guess what happened? There was a writer strike. You've talked
a lot about. Well, that major job, very difficult to
chairman of NBC, trying to get content on the air
during a strike. Now here we are in another writers strike,

(51:50):
I think very soon to be an actor and writer strike.
How is it different for you now than it was
when you were chairman of NBC And what are your
what are your feelings?

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Well, it's it's painful now as a producer because while
I was at NBC and all these executives, they're still
getting paid, right, you still get your salary. You know,
we're not making stuff, we're not getting paid. So it's
unbelievably painful on a real primacy of financial renumeration. You

(52:22):
know that that is a major major challenge now versus then.
But separately, the world is soft up and there's just
so many lines of miscommunication and hatred and intractability across
the spectrum of our lives. Right now and it's playing

(52:43):
out inside our writer strike and you know when David's
Aslov's getting booed at the BU commencement streech because of
the writers, and like it wasn't like that public a
class warfare when it was going on. It was just
more about like are they going to get more residuals
or not? And it was, you know, like there was

(53:04):
all these things. But it's now like it's truly taking
on a labor movement, and before it was kind of
like a middle class movement against a upper class movement.
You know, now it's it's got a lot more to it,
and a lot more teeth and a lot more intractability,
and a whole new set of players who can actually

(53:28):
survive it more on the studio and streaming side, which
it makes a compromise a lot harder. And it also
has so many people with so little knowledge about actually
what is going on inside the fight. I always find
the AI thing, like, if you're even talking about AI

(53:49):
as it relates to this strike, you're fucked right.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
You don't know what's going on. It's is this is
not what it's about, you.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
Know exactly, But there's probably like you know, a thousand
members of the guild. I think their job is going
to be taken by a bot, you know. And it's
like and so there's so many issues. So that's really challenging,
and it's and it's also so vitriolic. Like when I
was doing it, I got made fun of. But Judd
Apatow called me and said, Ben, you're a guy who

(54:20):
loves creative people. You come from the creative side. Let's
work on solving this. And so I talked to Jet
about it, and I would connect to people about it,
and I would work on trying to solve it, and
you know, really leaned across. I don't think those conversations
are even happening. And then on the other side, there's
these like super rich uber writers now who are like

(54:42):
the winners of the modern streaming ere who all got
way overpaid for, you know, creating one show that didn't
quite work. And they're sitting there like these writers and
I'm like, you're a writer, what do you what are
you doing? You're a writer. Just because you made seventy
five million dollars doesn't mean guy shouldn't be allowed to
make seventy five thousand dollars, Like, you know, so there's

(55:03):
all these like challenges, you know, across the board and
stupid noise entering the system that is a relevant to
the real negotiation. So it feels very challenging, to say
the lead, and disheartening. And you'll see a lot more
Korean content, and you'll see a lot more other forms

(55:26):
of content if it keeps going on, and then if
that content works, there's going to be less written content
by the guilds. I mean, it's just like this horrible spiral,
and so hopefully there's some great person and leader who
can step in and synthesize it all and make it happen.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
It's me, I'm just waiting for them to call me.
I've got it all figured out. Tell me it's well,
it's so interesting that you say it feels like an
old school labor movement, because what you're talking about about
the noise and AI and all that's You're exactly right,
it's but that feels like an old school political strategy

(56:06):
of trying to confuse what the real issue is. And
the real issue is is like those early labor movements,
the working class and the middle class of actors and
writers are being destroyed, and they just won't be there,
and it all stems from from an inability or it

(56:26):
all stems from never addressing what used to exist with
DVD residuals now on the streaming side, because an actor
who now does a job that in the old days,
when they weren't having jobs for six months at a time,
they were still making every quarter some amount of money

(56:49):
from residuals, and now they make none, and they lose
their health insurance, and then they get sick, and then
it it's I mean, it's this horrible, awful, but it's
your're literally seeing it happen. It's not like in the
future anymore. And I think I think in two thousand
and eight it was about there's things called streaming. Now
we need to figure out how we're doing that and

(57:11):
GOLLI b make new contracts that will help deal with that.
But now it's like, oh no, Literally, people are not surviving.
They're unable to survive on six episodes, but having exclusivity
for a year, they're unable to survive without any basis
for continuing to get paid during those times when their

(57:33):
work is still being seen by everybody on streaming services,
they're still out there offering their entertainment, but there's no money. No,
and very specifically, that means it's not a career. That
means it's a hobby. That's right, it's a hobby. It's
no longer a job, and that is that's right out.

(57:55):
And it used to be a career. You could do
it for your whole life, and you could say support
your family and you could send their kids to college,
and you could live a version of a real American life.
And unless you're the point zero one percent of it,
now you can't do that in the same way. I mean,
you don't want to woes me for people who are

(58:17):
making six figures, but you do need to woes me
for the people who made six figures one time over
a twelve year career and now are not able to
make anything. And so it's very confusing and disturbing. I
don't have the answer because the macroeconomic climate is so

(58:38):
bad and all of the traditional media players are being
killed regardless of a strike. So where does the money
come from, Like, who's actually going to give the money
to settle this thing and make this thing go away?
I don't know, and I don't have the answer because
one side is not doing well and the other side

(59:00):
is doing worse and that's not a great place for
a negotiation. Yeah, that's right. You have so many new projects,
thankfully for you, like your new barbecue brand, not on
the let's sit down and watch television space. I do
want to talk to you though, about your documentary series Untold.

(59:24):
The storytelling is innovative, it is in depth, and you
have a story in sports and as a sports fan
that you think you know, but watching this series has
taught me so much and has been so entertaining. So one,
I just want to congratulate you on that, and two,
is that something that you want to continue to explore

(59:46):
through and with propagate the intersection of sports and traditional
media and storytelling.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
One hundred percent? You know, we are all sports fans,
Drew Buckley, Howard, Me and the company and love sport,
and I'm told has become an incredible franchise and super
important to Netflix because it helps with their discovery, you know,
like instead of having a thousand individual documentaries, you're able

(01:00:15):
to create a franchise and an umbrella for the documentaries.
And I think the title is so good because it's
like exactly as you say, stories you think you know
but actually have been untold and we're going to tell them.
And whether it's Marty Fish's documentary or The Malice and
the Palace or the upcoming slate which is so strong

(01:00:39):
and will be dropped starting in August. There is incredible
material in these films and an incredible storytelling style. And
the Way Brothers, who also did Wild Wild Country, who
are our creative partners, are brilliant storytellers themselves, And we
love this franchise and I love documentaries in general. You know,

(01:01:02):
we have always loved documentaries, but no one bought documentaries
or aired documentaries before, and so one of the great
things about modern media is these new genres binding an audience.
There was a stat that our executive at Netflix gave us,
which was in the early days of Netflix, roughly with
forty million subscribers, only ten percent of their audience would

(01:01:27):
watch or had watched a documentary. Now, with whatever it
is over, you know, one hundred million subscribers, eighty percent
of their audience is consuming documentaries. So I'm really proud
to be part of that. And I knew early on
that would happen because it's such a visceral and extraordinary
storytelling medium, and there's something about the honesty of the

(01:01:51):
camera with real people that you connect to in a
different way than just a scripted show. And as the
script the show's got saturated, the documentaries actually became fresher.
And so I love Untold. I think it's brilliant. We're
always looking for great new untolds to tell and I'm

(01:02:14):
excited to extend it to other genres. And we have
an antonycul Smith documentary on Netflix right now that's incredible
that could easily be part of our untold of pop culture,
you know. And so finding other frameworks to tell these
stories and deliver these stories to an audience at large
is super exciting to me and the company and an

(01:02:34):
area that we're we're doubling down on and very excited about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Well, I do want to give a compliment to your directors.
I assume of untold because I think that I love documentaries.
I love watching documentaries. I think so often there is
a little bit of that feeling of you're aware that
someone is either talking in a certain way or behaving
in a certain way because they know they're going to
be on television. And here's the thing, I feel like,

(01:03:03):
in a real visceral way. As you're watching this series,
you feel like you are really getting to know these
people as characters, and even though they're not scripted, even
though they are real people, the camera man, it gets
really inside and I feel like you you really see

(01:03:23):
the subjects and their feelings behind these different stories. So
I want to give kudos to again, I assume the
director who is there doing the interviews on these stories,
because it's it's it's really well done. So congratulations on that, yes,
and thank you. And I think you just feel the
truth will set you free inside those films, you know,

(01:03:46):
And I feel like that absolutely the subjects don't feel
like they're manufacturing their responses. God, Ben, you know it.
I could talk to you forever, but kenetschi wa and
uh damn it. I should have known. I should have
known that one. Uh syonara, have a great time in Japan,

(01:04:10):
my partner, my friend. I love you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
I'll see you back in the States. Let's see it
on the golf course. Let's get on the golf course, Brian.
We got a battle, We got a battle. Thank you,
Thanks Ben, thanks for coming on. Thank you so much. Brian.
It's a pleasure and love love talking to you to
be continued as we say, and to be continued to
be continued.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Ben, my friend, thank you, Thank you for everything that
you do to move this industry forward. And as you
march into that brave new era, just promise me one
thing that you'll keep me in mind for cool new projects. Okay,
thank you. Hi, I could do a celebrity brand, just

(01:05:05):
tr try me out. As for the rest of you,
that's it for today. I'm off. You can always find
us on the gram as the kids call it. Anytime
you want a little dose of Off the Beat at
Off the Beat on the Instagram, And until next time,
have a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted and

(01:05:32):
executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Linglee.
Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes,
Hannah Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan
Papa Zachary, and our intern is Thomas Olsen. Our theme
song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only

(01:05:55):
Creed Bratton