February 14, 2024 • 63 mins
In a rare interview, the Emmy-winning television visionary opens up about his wild journey that saw him go from a career as a paratrooper in the British Army to a nanny in Los Angeles — and ultimately to the top of American television. Burnett opens up about the genesis of 'Survivor' and how he endured rejection after rejection until finally getting the greenlight. He also provides compelling insights and fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from his lengthy list of hits, including 'The Voice,' 'Shark Tank' and 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.' Sit back and enjoy a master class in management from one of the most successful minds in the entertainment world.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our Way with yours truly, Skip Bronson and My Pal
Paul Anka is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi folks, this is Paul Anka.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for
decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of us.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You're leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even as city
president or two.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before. Tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Paul, Hey, Skip, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Man?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What's going on? Hey?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I gotta talk to you about that that that tailor
and you told me that some woman in Burbank.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah, so I'm ready to go there because all my
fear of Ante's remember the bulletproof jackets he used to
make the goats for the boys.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's all wearing out?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Is she?
Speaker 6 (01:47):
She?
Speaker 7 (01:47):
Cool?
Speaker 6 (01:48):
She is?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
But by the way, it's not all wearing out because
I recognized that great coat you were wearing when you
performed in New Year's Eve on Times Square.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I hadn't moren in five years.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
That was a fear of him, the special if I recall, Yeah, yeah,
it was thank you.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
It looked amazing. It looked amazing. Who knew that the
lapel's going all the way out to the shoulder. We're
going to come back in style?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that you had to.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
You had to keep that in your closet until it
came back into style.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Right, It's been there for fifteen years. That was the
one night I pulled it out. Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
That's the first time I warned, you know, heavy as
coats were you know, they were so hoty, I know,
speaking of heavy, how'd you pull your heavy friend?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Tomorrow? I'm looking forward to Mark Burnett.
Speaker 6 (02:31):
He's awesome. Can I tell you something. He's just the greatest.
He's the greatest guy.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
And you know, I mean, the thing that keeps coming
back is his story is the American Dream.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I mean, the guy went from being a.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Paratrooper to being a nanny to being the you know,
probably the most if not the most important producer in television.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
It's just amazing, guys.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I got to hit him up on that nanny that
that I haven't.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Figured out yet.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, you know, it's I want some meat around that.
How do you hear? How do you become a nanny?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
And the chief Architect? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (03:05):
And how about the shows, I mean, the Survivor of
the Voice, The Apprentice, Shark Tank.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You think his days in the military help him come
up with that idea he had for Survivor.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
I don't know, but that's a great question. You should
ask him that when he's on.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Definitely.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Yeah, But you know, I think my goal would be
for this to be like a master class, you know,
to really talk about not just how you go from
being a nanny to being a producer, but how do
you go from being a producer to being the producer.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
And hitting it out of the park the way he
has And you know this, I'll tell you another thing,
by the way he really has balance in his life.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
We should hit on that because this guy, he loves
to work, but he loves to play.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
All right, So I'm gonna make a list. I'm gonna
ask him about, you know, the hard time he had
selling that show. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Anyway, we'll stay we'll stay tuned, and I probably won't
talk to you again until tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Oh no, oh, no, usually me and tell me what
you have before you go to bed.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
All right, you know what I think I will?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
All right, well, alright, I love to take.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Care of men. Skip. There's a Mark.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
I see him, Mark, I.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
See him in every good way. Hey Mark, Hey, how'd
you guys do you to meet? I'm very curious.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It's funny, Jordan. I was gonna let Mark answer that
because Jordan, our producer who's on with us, asked me
that question. I've known you so long. I don't even
remember how we first met. Do you do you remember
how we first met? Uh?
Speaker 7 (04:43):
Long loans I got on. I know how you rented
one of my beach houses.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh that's right, that's right, that's right, that's remember that.
That's right he had, that's right. Edie and I had
just sort of moved to l A and we wanted
to try mal and we looked at a lot of
houses to rent, and each one was worse than the next.
And then we walked into this house. There was absolutely
(05:10):
perfectly done, like you wouldn't change a thing nothing. It
was just flawlessly perfect. And Edie said in front of
the agent who hadn't given us the price yet. Oh
this is the one we wanted. What a great way
to negotiate, right, it was, but it was great. We
spent I don't know, you were three or four months
there and I remember the house is just fabulous.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, I remember you were raving about that house. Used
to call me like every day, you won't believe this house. Bliini.
I came out and saw you once, right, I said,
I'll split the rental with you. You didn't want you
didn't go for her. You know, Mark, I'm listening to
you and I'm reminiscent of a friend of mine. You know,
I kind of was raised in England because I was
(05:53):
like one of this kid teenage thing and it's all
over England and you're cocking me right.
Speaker 7 (05:59):
Yeah, I'm from my and I was born in my Lend.
Certainly within the sound of bowbells.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
One question I've got when I did the research was
you're a paratrooper.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Yes, I'm a veteran. I served in the third Battalion
Parachute Regiment, which is an elite unit in the British
Army of very famous regiments. The same regiment that jumped
into into Holland on on the movie A Bridge Too
Far so a big, big history Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And then a nanny.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
Well yeah, I had well except for the people who
hired me were pretty smart in that I remember. But
that night they interviewed me and the guy said, you know,
well can you, but can you? It's not just taking
care of kids. Can you clean? I said clean? I
just left the British Army. They came around with a
white glove looking for dust on my locker. He said, oh,
(06:53):
can you do laundry and iron?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Iron?
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Of course I could iron, I'm British. I could put
I could put a crease in your shirt so sharp
you could shave with it, sir. And then he said
to me, well can you cook? I said, sir, I'm British.
My mom can't even cook.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And we know how famous British cooking is. Right, it's
got a still nil over there, Indian, Italian, etc. That's
so cool man to make that transition. It was. And
then you became an insurance salesman.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Yeah, one thing you should know about working as like
a a bit security, bit of a driver, bit of
a cleaner.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, very good cleaning.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Really, They end up hiring a cleaner to clean my
room actually at that house. But it was interesting to
move two Beverly Hills from living in East London in
my parents weren't a Ford Motor company, so all the
houses were the same in the whole town. Suddenly I'm
in a place where they've got like a TV in
(07:57):
my room, which is amazing because there's only ever one
television in our entire house was probably was a black
and white TV, and we had like all these cable
channels and Z Channel, which was the movie channel. I
couldn't even believe it get movies whenever you want. And
they actually had only one spare car, which they said,
oh you can use the spare car. It was a Mercedes.
I couldn't even believe. So now I'm living in Beverly Hills.
(08:18):
I've got color TV with movie channel and the Mercedes
to drive around in. But what I realized was that
two things. One, they love English people and they would
ask me things like do you know the Queen? I'm like,
what did you go to Eton or Oxford? And I'm like, Okay,
this is gonna be great. They have no idea. I'm
(08:40):
from working class and didn't even go to college. They're
assuming all English people are smart. Next thing I learned
was they, while being very, very wealthy, were not any
smarter than me. And I realized, you know what, this
America thing could really work out.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That's funny, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Through them, mak The thing that threw them off about
you is you have perfect teeth. Rits are not necessarily
thanks the British Army dentists exactly. Those of us really
who didn't know you first found out about you because
you're the producer of The Survivor and you didn't just
go from being a nanny to hey, now producer of
(09:22):
this hot show. So what was sort of the give
us the genesis of that? How did that work that
you went from being a nanny to being, you know,
a producer of one of the highest rated shows.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Well, I left that job because I got I still
got too close to the kids, and the kids were
spending more time with me than they were with their dad.
It makes I was fine and make it fun for them.
I think there's a bit of a jealousy thing comes
in there. So that wasn't going to work out. So
I got another job in Malibu for a guy who
owned insurance company, and you know, he said to me, eventually,
(09:55):
you can't do this river, you know, do you want
to work at my insurance company? And so I went
and waked at the insurance company. And while I was
doing that, I started selling.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
T shirts.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
During the lunch breaks at the insurance company and started realizing, Wow,
I'm making more money selling Schmatzer than I was at
the insurance company.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Side.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
Then I rented a piece of a fence on Venice Beach,
not even a store or a parking lot space, just
a fence. I hung the T shirts on the fence.
The fence was cost me like a thousand dollars a month,
but I made a fortune selling damaged T shirts. I'd
buy them for two dollars a piece downtown Los Angeles
(10:41):
and sell them for eighteen in the stores they were
saying for forty five. And the damages, by the way,
you couldn't even see. But they couldn't go to Nordstrom's
or Macy's. And so I left the insurance business. I
said to go, I'm so sorry, thank you for the opportunity.
And I thought it was gonna be mad at me,
and it's another great American he said, mad at you?
(11:02):
I'm thrilled. All I what you do is do well.
This is the American dream. I'm so glad you make
in your own way. What can I do to help you?
So I was expecting to be yelled at you let
me down at your job. The opposite, How can I
help you? I stayed within touch with that guy, I say,
you know, until he died. I mean until he died
I think ninety or something. I remember one day when
(11:23):
I was working at his house.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
In Malibu and.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Said, you know, you're going to have a big future.
Then I went, I did Eco Challenges to show. First show,
then Survive A Survivor was going to come on at
a Memorial weekend. I'm at his house and I'm there
and an airplane flies by on the beach. I said, Survivor.
New series starts Wednesday, eight pm. He went, that's your show, right, Yeah,
(11:53):
it's my first network show. He said, wow, talk about
the American dream.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Mark.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
You know, you were a servant in this house and
you've got a network show coming on. I said, let's
hope it does well. He said well, he said, what
you can do if it does do well? I said,
you never know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
He said, well, next door. The house next door is
for sale. Whoopy Goldberg was just looking at it. It's
a small house next door. I said, wow, that would
be a dream, wouldn't it to buy that small house
next door? He said, no, the American dream. You buy
this big house, and I moved next door. I'm like, well,
I learned from that guy how Americans really want to
(12:35):
support success. Don't try and pull you down. This is
a country where if you've got the goods and you
can do the work, you'll get the open doors for you.
As long as you can do it, you have every opportunity.
Now I am the American dream. If you just want
to look at go forward.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I came.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
I'm working as a servant in a couple of houses.
That house that first house, by the way, it was
six two for North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills. Thirty years later,
after making many shows, you know, it survived The Apprentice,
Fifth Grader, The Voice, Shark Tank. You know, I then
sold that company to MGM. Part of the deal was
(13:13):
to make me presidents of MGM. The first thing I
got there, they set the car for me. I had
no idea where MGM even was. I'm walking to the office.
They give a big office and wow, I can't even
believe office side of the apartment, and they made me
president of MGM. It was at the window. One way,
I could see the Hollywood sign. The other way, I'm looking.
(13:35):
Wait a minute, what's the address in this building, mister
Burnet is two four or five North Beverly Drive. I
could see the house from my office where I was
picking up Doug poop on the tennis court thirty years earlier.
That is the American dream.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yes, indeed, it is an incredible story. I mean, he
could just stop breaking. I mean, that's that's game over.
Dropped the mic. But my question is, and a lot
of the stories about your apocryphal. And I don't even
know if this is fully true as close as we
are as friends. But the story that I had heard
was that you went to various networks trying to sell
(14:16):
the idea of the Survivor, and you went to less
Moonvez at the time was the CEO of CBS, and
he said, you know, this is a really interesting idea,
but I can't sell it. I mean, I can't get advertisers,
and so I can't put I can't put it on
the air. And you said, what if I find the
advertisers and you did some sort of a revenue share
with him? Is that true or is that just a
(14:38):
made up story.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
It's totally true. It's totally true. It's even it's even crazier.
So I pitched the networks. ABC said yes, so I
had a contract with ABC or deal mother, but ABC
and ABC then so now excited, actually sold with as
networkshow you know, hadn't spent any money, but I imagined it,
(15:01):
you know, and then a few months later it just
says we're developing it. They said, oh, we're going to
cancel the contract. I said, what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
We haven't been writing. I remember they.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
Said to me, what are you going to sue? ABC?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Get out here?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Right?
Speaker 7 (15:14):
And I thought, well, I guess they're right. I don't
even have hardly any money. How can I sue ABC?
CBS had already passed. But I went back in again.
I never met Les Movies. I'd pitched some person below him,
imagined it myself a meeting. I forget how with Les
Movies pitched it and exactly what you said, Skip. He said, look,
(15:37):
we want to do this because you can't make a pilot.
There's no one hour test case here. It can only
make the entire thing. So you know, first of all,
you've never made a network show Scerball. There's no pilot,
so we're trusting you for thirteen hours of network TV.
But he'd seen my previous show, which I had an
Emmy four called Eco Challenge. It was a nature kind
(15:58):
of discovery our show. So he liked my style what
I've done with it, and I said to him, well,
the thing if to learn, I know my mind overcoming objections.
Everyone has objections to what you're doing. Can you overcome
that objection? So first of all, discover what is the objection.
The objection wasn't he didn't like me. It wasn't. He
(16:21):
didn't think my style of making stuff was any good,
and he liked the idea. So is issue, he said,
was money. We're committing so much money to this and
without any test it's just too risky. Then I said
to him, how about we approached this like the Olympics
or he sell sponsors. Well, we'll sell five or seven
(16:42):
sponsors and I'll integrate their products into the show. And
he's like, what do you mean. I said, I did
it on Eco Challenge. My previous show on cable and
Discovery Channel where I put sponsors into it. Give me
a chance, is it Okay? Long as you go to
the app sizes with my sales team and you don't
(17:04):
embarrass us because we don't really know you. Okay, let's
try it, and if you sell four sponsors at X
number million dollars, I'll give you a deal. Anyway, I
went off my first team. I've never been outside of California, really.
I went to Minnesota. At Minneapolis in winter, I could
(17:26):
not believe the temperature, first of all, and I could
see these blonde guys who are like six foot eight
in shorts shoveling snow. Who are these people who live here?
This is crazy. I went there and Target was my
first meeting, and I pitched Target and I said, think
about this. These people are on an island. They're starving,
(17:47):
they're cold and uncomfortable. Imagine if we dropped to parachutes
with a big box of Target supplies and on top
of that, so the way that it will begin, you
what you want, the feeling you want from the audience
will be the excitement of the survivors who were dirty, smelly,
hungry to get this bag of supplies, pillows, some food,
(18:12):
some blankets, you know, stuff washing stuff, soap from Target.
But also I'll drop it from an aircraft on a
parachute and I'll make the parachute in the Target logo.
They literally said, and SEEBS executives sitting there just looking
at me, like who is this guy? And Target said, okay,
we're in. And Target at that point had never been
(18:34):
a CBS sponsor, so they were like, oh my god,
this is crazy. By the way, when I put that on,
what was great for Target that parachute where their logo
became a sunshade for the survivors. So that Target logo
was in about ten episodes, so imagine what they got
for their money. The second one, I went to Detroit,
I've never been to Detroit before, met with Ford Motor
(18:57):
Company and convinced them that later on, when there's only
like four left, there'll be a challenge and someone's going
to win a brand new car. I said, it's not
just the fact the car. I need the car shipped
to the island, but imagine the smell of a new car.
Imagine you've been on an island and the other had
the wash. Really for six weeks and you get to
(19:18):
sit in a brand new car. That new car smell,
the reaction they're going to give is going to really
expressly endorse how they feel about this new car. Ford said,
we're in. We'll do it. So Leslie Movie called me
a couple of days and they said, okay, you got
the deal. I said, oh, I've only sold two mister
movies and you told me yourself for said forget it.
(19:40):
I can't know what you're doing, but all my my
ads say, I can't believe this guy do this deal.
And the deal I made with him was once they
got their money back from all the costs. I mean
that I was going to get paid like three hundred
thousand or something like that for eighteen months work, so
not not that much but also not chump shut. And
(20:01):
the deal was once they got all their production costs back,
that would split fifty to fifty. Well, I remember the
show is so big. If you remember, it was massive.
So now we're three quarters away through the season, CBS
called me. Some lawyer calls me and says, we made
a mistake on the contract. I'm like, what, Yeah, the
(20:21):
contract says that after we get a cost back, you
get fifty percent. We're going to owe you ten million dollars.
I said, yeah, they would. They can't work. I mean
we didn't. We never imagine this. I said, okay, but
that's the deal, right. Well then the lawyer said, well,
can you forgive us this because the way it works
in TV, you don't realize Mark, the hits have to
(20:41):
pay for the failures.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yours is a big hit.
Speaker 7 (20:44):
We can make the money to pay for all the
shows didn't work. I said, it doesn't really help me.
I said, no, send me the shack, send me the scheck.
And so that year it's paid me ten million, three
hundred thousand dollars. And as you know now that that
first season, the final episode where Richard hatch It was
(21:07):
a single gay father, brilliant strategist won and seventy two
million people tuned in for the final episode of the
first Seas Survivor, the most watched summer series since Sonny
and Chare in seventy three.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Unbelievable. So you've heard of that.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
You've heard those guys, right, you've heard of those guys.
Study share it.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There are my buddies. We still we're in the same
record company. Way back when I just saw a share
the other night at the Fountain Blue. Yeah, I go
way back with them. Hey, Mark. Aside from the money,
(21:52):
what do you think motivates people to sign up for Survivor?
Speaker 7 (21:55):
Different things? That's in the initial time, it was a combination,
but the million dollars obviously bad. It was one of
the first million dollar shows, and so that was a
big at the time. There's a lot now. The other
thing is marketing. I marketed it as a great adventure
in that when's the last time someone because they're going
(22:19):
to be on the island, what six seven weeks or
thirty nine days, It's about seven weeks. When's the last
time you went somewhere, had no one calling on with
no bills arriving, no phone calls, no one bothering you.
You're literally living a Swiss Family Robinson kind of adventure.
And so it was the adventurous spirit and the money,
(22:39):
and of course the idea of being on television. That's
a big motivator. Now later, now we are the twenty
twenty threes is twenty three years later. The forty fifth
season of the show, with two a year, just went
up in the ratings. Survivor during a season is unbeaten
(23:01):
in twenty three years Wednesday's eight o'clock, and it's evolved now.
You know, Jeff Probes is one of my best friends
in the world, is the host and producer of Survivor.
He's doing much more evolving than I've ever done. He's
you know, Jeff's been running the whole thing for the
last ten years and has evolved it to be much
more about the strategic game. So people now, Paul, sign up,
(23:23):
Yes for the adventure, Yes for the money, and of
course to be on television. Everyone wants that. But also
are they the greatest strategists can? Let me tell you
the underlying value proposition that is survival. Survivor is a
game where you are combining with others or alone to
eliminate your competitors. But the kicker is the very end,
(23:46):
when there's a couple left, all those people previously eliminated
by you, you're asking them to give you a million dollars.
It's the greatest management training thing in the world. Can
you fire someone who works for you and have them
shake your hand and say, Okay, I get it, I
was treated well thanks, versus be mad at you if
you've eliminated people in Survivor? Did you do it in
(24:09):
a way they respected?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do they like you still?
Speaker 7 (24:12):
And are they willing to shake you around and say,
you know what, you beat me, you got rid of me,
but you deserve a million dollars. That's the real underlying
value proposition of.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Survivor, So that partly hasn't changed. Zerra. What is the
biggest change from day one until now? How is this show?
You said it evolved? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 7 (24:32):
I think Jeff Probes and the team many of the team,
by the way, are the same team that I hired
on day one. Well, I have a philosophy, by the way,
running my companies. CEO to many people means chief executive officer.
It doesn't to me, it means chief encouragement officer. How
(24:52):
do you hire people better than yourself, you know, are
smarter than yourself and encourage them. Well, Jeff Probes is
the leader, not me now, and Jeff is the one
who's involved it. And it's become a very very slight
playing multi level chess. Right from the first minute, they're
figuring out how to eliminate their opposition and win, but
have the opposition still give them the money. It's become
(25:15):
even deeper in the game, and the audience have evolved
with it. You know what's very interesting. Netflix made a
big difference because saviv you can watch the old seasons
on Netflix. We have a massive new audience that weren't
even born when Survivor came on, but they discovered the
old seasons on Netflix. So Netflix's streaming service has really
benefited us by the old seasons being watched and now
(25:37):
they're tuning in for the new seasons. We have a
really young audience.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And how involved are you at this point? We keep
talking about Jeff, but what is your involvement?
Speaker 7 (25:45):
I'm the executive producer. I'm there for guidance and advice
when asked. But the key thing, you know, when you
remember I've gone from that Eco Challenge and Survivor It's
first two shows. By the time I left MGM as
its chairman eleven months ago, I had fifty shows.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So how do you do that?
Speaker 7 (26:02):
You need to hire people better than you and be
a great delegator. And if you hire people who are
better than you, like Jeff Probes on Survivor, Clay Knuble
on Shark Tank, Audrey Morrissey who runs the Voice, these
are all handpicked by me, people I love and care about,
and they wouldn't really appreciate me showing up every five seconds. Oh,
(26:25):
move the camera slightly left, or do this?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Do that?
Speaker 7 (26:27):
They're like, what are you crazy? They know what they're doing,
they know more than me. They mentioned this Skip, you
and me. Skip owned a store. It was a great store,
convenience store, making lots of money. We decided to open
the second one. Then you go to one, I go
to the other. Now it's not doing it as well
as we were both there, but it's still making great money.
Then we decide to open twenty stores. Neither of us
(26:48):
can be any of those stores in person. The key
is who are we hiring to replace ourselves and how
do we encourage them? We do know nothing can be
the same as if you were there yourself. But you
won't be able to expand and scale a business if
you can't hire people better than yourself and encourage them
and leave them alone once they know what they're doing.
(27:11):
There's nothing more annoying than some entrepreneur bugging the shit
out of their employees.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Good management style. All the good guys have great management
style like that, you just let your people go do
the buffets very much like that Warren lets his people go.
Is that kind of your management style?
Speaker 7 (27:30):
In fact, what I hire new people, I always would
say to them, for the next three months, I'm not
expecting anything. You may do some good things, but not
really expecting it. Whatever you do is a bonus. Just
learn and don't feel the pressure. And they once to
do craziest things because you don't really know yet how
it works. And then after that if they're not really
(27:51):
if everything's going too well, after that, something's wrong because
if you're not failing a bit, you're not really trying.
It's like if you learn to ski or snowboard. If
you're not falling over, clearly you're not trying. You're too cautious,
and so people will make mistakes. It's okay.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I'd rather they make mistakes than do nothing. Absolutely the
irony of your management style. Just give you a parable.
When I was a developer of office buildings in Connecticut,
one of my tenants was McDonald's and the regional vice
president of McDonald's name was Frank Bhin. He was showing
me the guidebook if you're a franchisee, and it said
(28:32):
six am put key indoors six ' oh one, switch
on Frio later six h two. You followed exactly the
way they laid it out. And of course one of
the things that McDonald's prides itself on is if you're
in a McDonald's in Minnesota when you were there to
see Target, or when you're in a McDonald's in Detroit
when you're visiting Ford, you're going to get the same meal,
(28:53):
and there's no creativity to it. So there's such a
creative aspect to what you've done and what you delegate
to your people like Jeff and others. It's just the opposite.
There's no real specific formula, right, it's just a lot
of it's making it up as you go along, but
knowing what to make up.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Yeah, I am with Survivor. I was heavily involved probably
four ten years as well, and you know, the Voice
Less time, probably heavily involved for maybe yeah, the first
five years, maybe same as Shark Tank. Because as you
get more experienced than you people also people knew knew
(29:35):
and know my way of running things and the sort
of style of the shows and had seen the shows.
And if as you're hiring smart people who are respected,
who are well paid and encouraged. Yeah, and then look
now The Voice, Shark Tank Survivor. These shows have evolved
way beyond what I thought they would, and they're better
(29:58):
than what I could have done. I still was the
person to put them on the air, still an executive producer.
Get a lot of pats on the back, but I'm
not a person who likes when credit is stolen from
the people doing the actual work. Hollywood is full of
assholes who do very little and take all the credit,
(30:18):
and I will never do that. You know, for example,
I realized after quite a few years ago that it
was it was silly for me to get up on
the stage and accept the Emmys because I wasn't doing
the work anymore. I mean, not doing every the people
doing the day that people. I became like a general.
You know, the general in the army is not out
there in the trenches, are they that They're directing things
(30:40):
from behind the scenes, and that's how you scale. And
nothing can be worse than the person. Imagine the general
was taking credit as if as if it was really
out there firing on the front line.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
That's bullshit. Paul and I were talking about, you know,
the way you created all these shows, and Paul's a
creator also obviously in his career. But the common thread
(31:11):
with everything that you do, at least the way Paul
and I saw it, is the American dream, the Voice,
the American Dream, the Shark Tank. You know, someone has
a dream of a product that they can Is that
fair to say that, that's sort of the comment. If
there's a thread that runs through all these shows that
you've created.
Speaker 7 (31:30):
Absolutely, it's the American Dream. It's also you know what
I did the Voice. You remember, American Idol was pretty huge.
But American Idol its success was based upon humiliation, you know,
which was that the things they found try and find
deliberately bad singers, which was made they common up the
Gung Show sort of thing, but an updated version. You know,
(31:50):
when John Demore, there was a Dutch guy who came
up with the original idea for the Voice, and you know,
I've known him for a long time. I said, I'll
do this show with you. And what I liked was
that there was no humiliation. Every person on the Voice,
every person is good enough to win. They all can
(32:11):
actually sing in pitch. They're not sharp, they're not flat,
they're really good. And so where was the drama. That
the drama was in the coaches, the four famous singers
argue amongst themselves how to get that person on their team,
so completely flipped it. There was never any humiliation ever
(32:31):
of the contestants. Who's singing ever? And it was the banter,
the sitcom between the four coaches, and it flipped on
its head. And I think that it came at the
right time, because I think there came a point where
humiliation became come on, it's enough of this, Let's not
do this, and so survivor does humiliate the voice. My
other show, my dear show for the six hundred episodes
(32:54):
of Are You Smarter Than the Fifth Grader, which was
a show where ten year old cineclass and there were
people went to master's degree from UCLA, lawyers or doctors
or you know, professors were asked fifth greater questions. And
why that show was successible because the kids were never humiliated,
the kids knew the answers, and the kids were laughing
(33:15):
at the adults in a in a fun way, and
Jeff Foxworthy hosted it and never ever made anyone feel awful.
It was good fun laughter, but in a kind way.
And it's a show that made kids feel smart, because
clearly any of us, we're all smart, but try to
remember what things like questions like, for example, how do
(33:39):
you figure out the area of a triangle? You know,
like when's the last time we thought about things like that.
We haven't thought about those fifth grader questions in a lifetime.
But the kids are doing it right now, and so
the kids I was going to beat the adults of
another show right now on ABC called Generation Gap, which
has young kids with their grandparents. So for example, you
(34:01):
could ask a young kid, you give it a young
kid a rotary phone and ask them to make a
phone call. They have no cally they're pressing the buttons,
understand it turns or you could be asking the grandma,
who's Miley Cyrus? There's no clue, right, And so it's
a generation gap. Another thing, and yet again I do
that show with Jimmy Kimmel, a good fun entertainment. Why
(34:23):
I think that's Shark Tank. By the way, here's the
thing which you guys know, and Paul, you've been in
the public eye for your whole life, and you know
that the press can always try and rip us down, right,
So where a shark Tank came out. I did an
interview with the La Times, and I was trying to explain,
you know, here's how I look at it. Getting a
(34:44):
mortgage for a house is really hard, right, Imagine trying
to get a loan from a bank to start a business.
But at least the houses of Brooks and Mortar isn't
going in there. Oh, I want to take a loan
for this business. And so I thought that was a
good LA Times wrote a story and said, what a joke,
as if Mark Burnett knows what it's like to have
(35:06):
to apply for a mortgage. They turned it upside down
on me. But the headline that was in the story,
the headline was just a great new show, Shark Tank.
I had like five hundred friends say, oh man, great
story in the La Times. They never read the story, clearly,
they just read the headline. Had they read the story,
it was ripping me a new one.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Right, yeah, a great show. By the way, we're losing Cuban, right.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 6 (35:33):
You know what.
Speaker 7 (35:35):
It's happen what fifteen years? Who knows? I haven't spoke
to Mark about it, but a well, great guy, good friend,
and if so, you know it's the show's not about
any one person. You know, the show is which is
a show, you know. And if you look at the Voice,
look at many different coaches that has been on the Voice,
and right now with Shark ten, there's many many guest
(35:57):
sharks that come on and do about Shart Tank. Shark
Tank is my biggest co viewing show. It wouldn't think
because it's about selling businesses right or getting investment in businesses,
so you're doing maths of what percentage for what money.
The biggest audience that has is kids, kids watching with
(36:17):
their parents. The kids like it and the parents are
discussing business. I really think American education should change. I
think business and tax and stuff should be part of
the normal high school education. I mean it's like how
kids love Shark Tank and dealing with how companies are
bought and sold, how money's made in the end for
(36:39):
a capitalist economy could be a lot smarter for kids
to be taught in high school. These sort of underlying principles.
How does the government work, why are we paying taxes
when they do with the taxes? How does business work?
And how do you value a company? What kind of
companies would would be useful. Why would someone want to
buy our products? These are really valuable every things could
(37:00):
help people grow in their lives.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
What's next for you? Is there something on your bucket
list that you've yet to do that's exciting for you.
Speaker 7 (37:08):
You've got a few things come my way that Yeah,
I think I'm interesting in the travel business.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Travel.
Speaker 7 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah, I remember my shows have been all over
the world, right, I've probably as a producer. I don't
think there's probably any producer in the world who's made
more forum based shows than me. I mean, so, yeah,
So I'm interested in them. I think travel is a
very clean business, right, and I think Americans, by the way,
some of the best tourists. Americans are very clean. Americans
(37:39):
put their trash in the trash can Americans tip Well,
it's a great country, you know. And so I like
the idea that sustainable travel. I like the idea that
where some economies in the developing world might do a
less clean kind of business if they can have tourism.
Tours are very clean, sustainable business, and it encourages people
(38:03):
to protect certain places because if places are made to
be ugly with architecture or too many neon lights, unless
it's obviously in Vegas, but people don't want to go there.
Places that are remained cute and pretty and charming are
attractive to tourists, So I'm interested in that.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So, Paul, speaking of travel, Mark and I were on
a flight from Los Angeles to New York and we
were at forty one thousand feet and suddenly the plane
was a lot quieter, and the pilot came on and
told us that we had just lost the starboard engine
at forty one thousand feet and they were going to
(38:43):
look for an airport put the plane down. So I
know Mark so well, and I know how spiritual he
is in his life, and I looked over at him
just to try to get some spirit. We flew that
about a half an hour on one engine until we
landed at an airport in Colorado. And I remember, Mark,
(39:04):
if you do that. When the pilot came out of
out of the cockpit and he came back to us
and he said, wow, that was exactly like the simulator.
Mark looked at him and said, I'm glad you were
trained in that simulator.
Speaker 7 (39:17):
That was quite an experience to encourage your listeners to
you know, is interestingly, had you not told a skip
we wouldn't have known, right, So basically he landed it
as good as one engine as too. So it's very
encouraging for people to hear that because you think, oh,
I mean obviously telling us that was like what you know?
We looked at each other, Oh shit, right, So you
(39:38):
don't know, I've never had that before. You know, I've
been a parachute ber. I didn't need a parachute with
me what it jumped out, but it landed.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
They know what they're doing. They can fly those places
unless you unless you're over the Pacific, that's the biggest
body of water. You don't want to lose an engine.
But with one engine, you're you're gonna do fine as
well as you can land somewhere. You know, people are
spooked out about aircrafts and flying. They've got it down today.
When you look at the reports of the crashes, it's
always man made seventy two deficiency in pilots.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
Well, who knew the poor anchor work for the FAI.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I read enough about it, FAA fun anchor. I don't
mind flying. I've been flying since I was a kid.
You know, there were prop planes and I'm what fifteen
years old. I'm on with Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats
Domino and Buddy Hawley and we're doing rock and roll shows.
We're only five hundred bucks a week and loving it.
(40:35):
And we're on the rinky dink planes. We're going to Australia. Okay,
so that's La Hawaii, stop in Hawaii, stop somewhere else
land in Australia, like what light years ahead? We didn't care.
We didn't care until it started kicking in. But those
were tough flights. You know, today's travel is just it's
(40:55):
like being in your own bedroom, so easy. Didn't like
it then though.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So Mark, because you know, because this is a new
thing for the two of us and we're just getting started,
we're looking at different little ideas and one was that
our producer Jordan came up with where with sort of
a lightning round of questions and just wanted to get
your take on these. When is how many hours of
nay to sleep do you get?
Speaker 7 (41:20):
I aim aim for eight and don't always get eight,
but I aim for eight. I got to bed early.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
What time you go to bed?
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah? What time do you go to bed? Good question?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
So you're you're religiously in bed by nine nineteen thirty
every night, not every single but.
Speaker 7 (41:36):
Yeah, I pretty much try and do that. Especially I
live in Park City up here, so my goal is
to be on my snowboard by nine am, so I
would get up early. I do my I have a
book called Jesus Calling that I read every day and
I pray. I pray that a huge priority to me
and the Holy Spirit and a snowboard. So I'm in
(41:58):
a place that I remember. I've been forty years of America,
thirty years of my TV companies, sold my company three times,
first to Hurst, then to MGM, then I owned three
percent of all of MGM, sold that to Amazon. So
I'm ready for a break. You know, in the old days,
the word sabbatical is around Sabbath, right once a week.
(42:19):
So in the Bible, God rested on the seventh day.
In the old days, people who had some sort of
means would take a year off in every seven years,
which we don't have that are doing. And so you know,
i still have to have some responsibility on my shows,
but I'm definitely not overscheduling myself and I'm actually living
(42:41):
the dream and getting a good sleep is part of it.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, it's very important, especially in our age. But those balls,
those back balls are wide and beautifully groomed. Last time
I skied up there, you're still enjoying all that.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I love it every day.
Speaker 7 (42:54):
I mean I'm going to every day.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Then.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, great balls, white and smooth. It's some of the
best grooming I think there.
Speaker 7 (43:03):
But they say you saw best snow on earth because
it's like Champagne's pot.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
It's so light.
Speaker 7 (43:08):
You can as you pick the snaup and blow it
with your blow air out and it goes in the sky.
It's okay, Skip, what's next? Next question?
Speaker 1 (43:16):
You know earlier you're talking about these shows and how
you've delegated. That's been important thing. But what's one thing
that you have to do yourself that you would never delegate? Pray? Yeah,
you can't delegate that, but you can teach it to people.
What would you say is your standard lunch? Just typically
on an average day, you're so fit, but what do
you what do you do for a line coach? Salmon
(43:37):
and vegetables? There you go, skip.
Speaker 7 (43:39):
You know me, I'm very regimented a military guy, being
a really top military unit and therefore, but if I
have a fault, it's I had the same lunch every day,
three to sixty five days a year. I learned recently
from a doctor it's not wise. Your body doesn't do well.
It needs a variance of food, So I'm trying to
(44:01):
add new things in.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
But I.
Speaker 7 (44:04):
View food as fuel. So I literally have oatmeal for breakfast, coach, salmon,
and vegetables for lunch, sometimes also a dinner, or maybe
I've started eating some elk and venison there. So meat
do's not got any antibiotics or any crap in it.
I'm very regimented, regimented, and disciplined. You're very disciplined completely,
(44:27):
I have to and sometimes you've said to me, what
sort of things I hate in life? I dislike people
who don't take responsibility for failure. There's always someone else's fault.
I in a military unit like I was in, things
go wrong. First of all, when you're in the middle
of a mission, or even when I was doing these
(44:48):
races in the mountains, no point arguing about a mistake
was made in the middle of it. But afterwards, ever debrief,
take response. If you made a mistake, take responsibility and
move on. Everyone's going to give you a break, especially
American don't mind you making mistakes and failing, long as
you take responsibility.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And try it and don't do it again.
Speaker 7 (45:04):
If you're a person carrying a pot of paint and
you drop it and splashes, people say, oh, right, but
you guess I'm Sorry's mistake you that again? The same
But what don't come near me. You're you're the idiot
that dropped the pot of paint twice. Take responsibility and
don't make the same mistakes. Man, learn from it with
all your strength and all your discipline. What would you
(45:26):
say is your greatest weakness that I need to take
more time to slow it down and be a bit
still because running all those shows. I remember, remember we
started this discussion, went over and became a servant in
Beverly Hills, and on the same street became the present
(45:47):
of MGM. Right, that's like, it's so much busyness and
stuff going on, and it's like it's like an engine
that you wind up, you know, and it's and then
now I'm taking it's slower. It's hard to slow down
the engine. And if you can't slow the engine down,
you're not really in touch with the spirit. And so
(46:07):
that's what I've got to work on. Being a bit more.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Still, so in terms of things that might annoy you,
what would be like the biggest pet peeve? People who
don't tell, responsibility bothers, a consistency.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
There right for sure, you have a military man there.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
So other than one of Paul's songs, what would you
say is your favorite song?
Speaker 7 (46:27):
Probably Van Morrison astral Weeks.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
I love Van Morrison.
Speaker 7 (46:33):
Yeah, that is one of my wife, Roman Downey, who
played the angel on Touch My Angel.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
She's Irish.
Speaker 7 (46:40):
One of her best friends is Van and Van's been
at our home fifty times. He's a genius. I know
you know him, Paul the Genius and astral Weeks is
played one of my favorite songs of all time.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
If you have your eyes of producing the Oscars, No, no,
because never never, never interested.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
No because I don't believe they would listen to me.
I mean, clearly, it's improving to think about the Oscars.
A network TV show, which means it's a broad audience.
Broadcasting is not narrowcasting. It's broadcasting, and therefore, would it
be wiser for a show on broadcast TV to be
(47:33):
celebrating what many many people enjoy it, not just what
a few voters in the Academy were liked. Therefore, many
many times you just to come on, it's won by
a movie that no one's seen or even heard of.
And so now that's the privilege of the Academy, and
I respect that, but maybe it should be on a
narrow a narrow cast like a cable or or something
(47:57):
where it's a narrow cast broadcast. TV is for a
wide audience, and so I'd be suggesting different categories and
also would be suggesting there should be a fan voted category.
I mean, I've produced the MTV Movie Awards for seven
years and I think so six or seven years, and
the People's Choice Awards for the same time. Those two shows,
(48:21):
the awards are given by the fans who vote for them.
But for example, the Grammys, the Grammys also could do
with some fan voted categories, you know, just to engage people,
to make them care about did their vote count?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
You know, what do you feel un artificial intelligence sounds
is going to change your world?
Speaker 7 (48:37):
I think it's great. I think it's a great thing.
I think it's going to be medical advances, science advances. Yeah,
and obviously a lot of people are scared of it
because they think it might hurt their job. But listen, Paul,
You've been around long enough to know that if one said, oh,
television is going to kill radio, before that, oh radio
is going to kill live theater, and then oh, cable
(49:00):
TV is going to kill network TV, and streaming is
no good, and then oh, their stream is going to
kill movies. It's all going to exist. It's just adapts.
You can't be scared of new technology. And in the end,
what is AI doing is it's computers are reading everything
(49:20):
ever written and analyzing what it means. Right, And so yeah, well,
there'll be songs written by AI, there'll be movies written
by AI. Of course they will be. On the other hand,
think of this when someone has said they're creating a
script for a movie. Their whole life, they've grown up
as a child in a house the first few years
(49:42):
with their siblings and their parents have learned things. Then
have seen TV and learned things. They've learned to read
book and they've learned things when to school and learning.
The whole brain is that their computer, it's got knowledge
has been dumped into it. So AI is just doing
a super duper version of that. So let's say someone
like unk knowing but that Taylor Sheridan who wrote brilliantly Yellowstone.
(50:04):
Of course Taylor Sheridan was affected in his art by
all the Westerns he's ever seen. But you can't say
you should only be able to create something if you've
never seen something similar. I mean, it's ridiculous. AI is
a supervisioner. There will be problems, there's always problems stuff,
But I do think it's going to be a benefit
for humanity and clear the other thing you've seen recently
(50:26):
in congressional testimony and stuff, the US government is omitting
that we do have aircraft from outside of humanity, from
other planets, and actually even mentions biologics, which means that
non human intelligence has been recovered by the US government,
and some reason that they have been a hard time
telling us the taxpayers, who are their bosses, right, we're
(50:50):
the bosses of government and AI clearly in analyzing where
did these space draft come from? What is it we
could learn this speed of which learning and hopefully for
humanity and peace could grow faster by AI, we're much
quicker than humans trying to do it.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah, it's a coming force, for sure, it's happening.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
If I could just pivot back. It was just thinking
for a second when you're talking about, you know, your
spirituality and your wife. Roma. She's a ten in every way,
drop dead, gorgeous, wonderful person, incredibly spiritual. Sends me messages
all the time. I think I've told you I get
a kick out of these. You know, it slows me down,
to be honestly, I suffer from the same disease Paul
(51:36):
does too, just trying to do too much, going so fast.
And when I read one of those notes from Roma
that she sends out to her friends, it makes me
really take pause and think about it. But was she
the one that made you a spiritual person? Or are
you the one that made her a spiritual person? Or
did you just happened to both be spiritual people that
(51:57):
came together.
Speaker 7 (51:58):
She grew up Catholic in Ireland in the Troubles, which
is the name for the war in Ireland between the
Catholics and Protestants and Britain, and her brother as a priest,
Roma's been guiding to church her entire life, the Church
ofr entire life. Interestingly, Roman never tried to make me anything.
This was really cool about Roma. She just her way
(52:20):
of getting someone to do something is lead by example.
Just she just does it. If you think it's cool,
you might do it too.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
It doesn't tell you it.
Speaker 7 (52:29):
One of my faults is I would try I want
a quick result. I'd run tell someone to do something,
explain why they should do it and why they're wrong
to not do it. She would never do that. But
what really made men? I mean, I grew up Christian?
I mean, but what does that mean? That means it's
Christmas and Easter. It doesn't mean the certain Jews that
don't go to synagogue every every week, they go to
high Holy Days and stuff. So just because you're a
(52:51):
dura Christian or it doesn't mean that you are spiritually
involved with it. But when I decided, along with my
wife in twenty eleven, to start making the Bible series,
I originally wanted to do it because I thought there
was a vacuum in the marketplace. One hundred and fifty
million Christians. You know, obviously many many less Jews in
(53:12):
the world, but the Judeo Christian faith would enjoy seeing
a show about the Bible, the most read book on Earth. Well,
I got ripped a new one in the press, right,
how ridiculous an executive Hollywood who didn't like my success said,
oh great, he's going to fail. He's got all these
big shows. No one is going to watch the Bible
(53:34):
on prime time TV. Well they were wrong, and I
was right because the Bible on a Sunday night was
up against Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, and the
Bible had more viewers than Walking Dead and Gamer Thrones combined,
and the CNN headline said God beats zombies. Now, my
(53:56):
spirituality came as a result. So I'm smarter to know.
You don't get to make the Bible series international series
and get it wrong. If you get the Bible wrong,
it's game over. So I made I made my mission
to really study. Hired forty experts to teach me and
(54:18):
to read every script and give notes forty forty different
disagreeing people, because Cadies and Protestants are not the same
and Jews are not the same. I even had Muslim advisors,
because you know, there's parts of as parts of the
Abrahamic Covenant. That's where that came from. And partially through
studying it and partially just through the Holy Spirit, that
the supernatural part of faith. It just came to me
(54:42):
and certain things skip and I've told you this, but
I'd say that publicly certain things. I don't know how
I knew. I just knew it was right and put
it in the series. It turned out to be correct,
you know. And that serious huge. I mean, do you
know that's that series? It was Pirate in China. Four
hundred million Chinese people watched it. I gave it away
(55:04):
to Russia. I gave the series to Russia for free
Russian TV. In Russian one hundred and fifty million Russians
watched it. It was a number one series in Spain,
in Portugal, in Canada, the first night it went on,
it was up against the first NHL hockey game and
the Bible beat hockey in Canada.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
That's true. That's a headline, the Bible beat hockey.
Speaker 7 (55:26):
I remember that Oprah, who we've known for years, called
as I said, guys, I'm on week four in the Bible.
It's amazing, this is crazy. It's the water cooler talk
of America. Can I come and do a two hour
special from your house? So Oprah came. Remember the Opien
line was to the American public, the Bible is the
water cooler talk of America. What is going on We're
(55:48):
going to find out the next two hours with Mark
and Roma. Because Oprah is a person, a believer of
faith and got to know a lot of people through
that tier perry of various people who encouraged us. I
would say, if I look back at my career, the
biggest highlights of my career, Survivor and the Bible.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Was the most useful failure you've ever had, Mark, most.
Speaker 7 (56:09):
Failure, Well, every failure actually is useful. I take responsibility
and learn from it.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
First off.
Speaker 7 (56:16):
But some shows that I wish did better. Two shows.
One was rock Star in Excess where Michael Hutchins unfortunately,
as you know, died, It left in Excess without a
lead singer. And I did a show on CBS good
rock Star in Excess where we found the new lead
singer called JD. Fortune became the new lead singer of
(56:36):
Inexcess and two world tours with it. But the show
didn't go more than two seasons. It was hard to Yeah,
I wished by what I should have done season two.
I should have went to Queen and asked, you know,
obviously they have a new singer there. It's it's hard
to find a band that needs a new lead singer.
It wasn't a sustainable idea, so that was kind of
a failure in that Look at my shows go decades.
(57:00):
That show went only two years.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Right.
Speaker 7 (57:03):
Another show that I loved I did a show called Contender,
a boxing show with Sebesto Stallone and Shurenn Leonard that
went four seasons. I wish that was still That was
such a brilliant thing because if you think of the
value proposition for Contender, no rich person who's advantage is
getting the ring to become a boxer professionally. These are
(57:23):
guys who are on the wrong side of the tracks,
and literally no one wants to get posting the face
to make their living unless you have to and feature family.
Working with Stillane, who was a friend of mine, was amazing.
I learned so much from Sly. Sly said to me, Mark,
let me explain how to make Contender better. He said,
look at Rocky. What do you think Rocky is about?
I said, it's about Rocky. He said, in a way.
(57:46):
Watch Rocky again, but watch it through Adrian's eyes. I'm like,
oh wow, he said, Look how many times the camera
cuts to Adrian's face in Rockies boxing. Yet more knowledge
and understand an emotion from that than watching Rocky get
punish on it. But so I then on Contender made
a big thing about the families and the loved ones
(58:08):
and cameras on them when their loved one was fighting.
The loved ones fighting to feed the family because they're
from poor families, and while their parents and wives and
kids want to encourage them, they're not hiding when they're
getting hit, and the great way of letting people understand
the value of this drama. So that was another show.
(58:29):
It went four seasons. So I consider that a failure
because I you know why, it's your ten years, twenty years.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
This is such great for me because I'm with two
of my closest friends together in a conversation and the
two of you have a lot in common, but one
thing you have in common you both have amazing instincts.
I mean, you think about these shows that you've done.
They have been so successful, and some people, of course
would write it off to luck. It's not luck. Same
with Paul. You know you hit. Paul's instincts are straight on,
(59:01):
and that's why you know his career has endured the
way it has, and this is why your career has
endured the way it has and the other common denominator.
I think Paul correct me if I'm wrong. I think
Paul wrote Buddy Holly's last song, right, wasn't it one
of them? It doesn't matter any songs he recorded before
he died.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
He was he was a very good friend of mine,
and I was kind of guiding his career. You know,
he's going through some problems with management and the group,
et cetera, et cetera. And he wanted to, you know,
elevate two strings and the kind of production that I
was doing, and they were going to open a company together.
And he called me after he got married and he said,
(59:40):
you know, I want to do a big band kind
of arrangement. So I wrote, it doesn't matter anymore, and
then we put him on tour. But you know, the
best late plans. We were all eager to get to
the next city. You know, we didn't travel and style
back then. These were all buses, not well appointed, and
a lot of it was in weather. So every now
and then we kind of contemplate taking a plane, any plane,
(01:00:03):
to get to the next city. Get your laundry done.
And Buddy was taking pilot lessons in Teterborough. So we
sent him out on that tour and the weather was
pretty bad and you wanted to get to the next city,
and he convinced this pilot to take he and the
bopper I think Richie Allen's to the next city. Well,
(01:00:23):
you know, they never got off the ground. It was disastrous,
but that's the day the music died, you know, and
it was he was going to be my music partner,
and we traveled all over the world. He was huge
in Great Britain, Scotland. I mean, they love Buddy, all
the English primarily back there. In the earlier years they
were emulating what we were doing, and then they finally
(01:00:44):
got to do it better. The only guy that waylaid
their plans is when Hendrick sit Town I was over there.
I told you guys, every great guitarist wound up in
that little club and Jimmy got up and he started playing.
Well half of them were ready to go home and
commit suicide because I couldn't believe how amazing he was,
you know. So he changed that landscape. But the British,
(01:01:05):
you know, they turned it right around and did it
better than we did and came over here and swept
us away. And if I wasn't a writer, I don't
know what kind of career i'd have, you know, writing
those little teenage songs. But I did Tonight Show Theme
and Longest Day, just kind of stayed active and had
the gravitass of writing. But the English force was really
you know, when I met the Beatles and knew them,
(01:01:26):
and I'd come back to my agents over here to
talk to them, say, there's these kids, you know, the Beatles,
they'd said, what what Beatles? I mean Beatles? I said,
the Beatles. They got here, but I said, you got
to see them, and I think Normy Weiss and Sid
Bernstein they flew over and made the deal, brought them
over Shay Stadium at Sullivan. You know the rest of
the story. They became the factor. They were it man.
(01:01:47):
They blew us out of the water.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Amazing. So Mark, I know we're keeping you off the slopes,
but you want to tell you at number one, I'm
glad we didn't have our buddy Holly moment you and
I together at that time. Secondly, I need you to
work on your golf game, although looking over your shoulder
with that snow, I don't think you can do it
up there unless you have a I'm taking lessons on
the simulator. So actually, you know, I'm pretty focused and
(01:02:12):
the most important thing, one of the most important things
to me will be to beat you in the next
few years. I look forward to it. Really appreciate you
doing this. I know you don't do this, so that's
greatly appreciated. You were terrific.
Speaker 7 (01:02:26):
Of course, Skip, you could not find in the last
every yes, I would ever do this except for that
close friendship. I'm grateful. It was a good conversation. Thank you, Paul,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Pleasure, Ski, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Take care.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Our Away with Paul, Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson and
mixed and mastered by Doug Bone.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Our Way with yours truly, Skip Bronson and My Pal
Paul Anka is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi folks, this is Paul Anka.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And my name is Skip Bronson. We've been friends for
decades and we've decided to let you in on our
late night phone calls by starting a new podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And welcome to Our Way. We'd like you to meet
some real good friends of us.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
You're leaders in entertainment and.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Sports, innovators in business and technology, and even as city
president or two.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Join us as we ask the questions they've not been
asked before. Tell it like it is, and even sing
a song or two.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
This is our podcast and we'll be doing it our way.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Paul, Hey, Skip, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Man?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
What's going on? Hey?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
That?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
You know?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I gotta talk to you about that that that tailor
and you told me that some woman in Burbank.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah, so I'm ready to go there because all my
fear of Ante's remember the bulletproof jackets he used to
make the goats for the boys.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's all wearing out?
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Is she?
Speaker 6 (01:47):
She?
Speaker 7 (01:47):
Cool?
Speaker 6 (01:48):
She is?
Speaker 5 (01:49):
But by the way, it's not all wearing out because
I recognized that great coat you were wearing when you
performed in New Year's Eve on Times Square.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I hadn't moren in five years.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
That was a fear of him, the special if I recall, Yeah, yeah,
it was thank you.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
It looked amazing. It looked amazing. Who knew that the
lapel's going all the way out to the shoulder. We're
going to come back in style?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that you had to.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
You had to keep that in your closet until it
came back into style.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Right, It's been there for fifteen years. That was the
one night I pulled it out. Are you kidding?
Speaker 4 (02:21):
That's the first time I warned, you know, heavy as
coats were you know, they were so hoty, I know,
speaking of heavy, how'd you pull your heavy friend?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Tomorrow? I'm looking forward to Mark Burnett.
Speaker 6 (02:31):
He's awesome. Can I tell you something. He's just the greatest.
He's the greatest guy.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
And you know, I mean, the thing that keeps coming
back is his story is the American Dream.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I mean, the guy went from being a.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Paratrooper to being a nanny to being the you know,
probably the most if not the most important producer in television.
Speaker 6 (02:50):
It's just amazing, guys.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I got to hit him up on that nanny that
that I haven't.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Figured out yet.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, you know, it's I want some meat around that.
How do you hear? How do you become a nanny?
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Right?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
And the chief Architect? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (03:05):
And how about the shows, I mean, the Survivor of
the Voice, The Apprentice, Shark Tank.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
You think his days in the military help him come
up with that idea he had for Survivor.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
I don't know, but that's a great question. You should
ask him that when he's on.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Definitely.
Speaker 5 (03:19):
Yeah, But you know, I think my goal would be
for this to be like a master class, you know,
to really talk about not just how you go from
being a nanny to being a producer, but how do
you go from being a producer to being the producer.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
And hitting it out of the park the way he
has And you know this, I'll tell you another thing,
by the way he really has balance in his life.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
We should hit on that because this guy, he loves
to work, but he loves to play.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
All right, So I'm gonna make a list. I'm gonna
ask him about, you know, the hard time he had
selling that show. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
Anyway, we'll stay we'll stay tuned, and I probably won't
talk to you again until tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Oh no, oh, no, usually me and tell me what
you have before you go to bed.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
All right, you know what I think I will?
Speaker 4 (04:09):
All right, well, alright, I love to take.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Care of men. Skip. There's a Mark.
Speaker 7 (04:21):
I see him, Mark, I.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
See him in every good way. Hey Mark, Hey, how'd
you guys do you to meet? I'm very curious.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
It's funny, Jordan. I was gonna let Mark answer that
because Jordan, our producer who's on with us, asked me
that question. I've known you so long. I don't even
remember how we first met. Do you do you remember
how we first met? Uh?
Speaker 7 (04:43):
Long loans I got on. I know how you rented
one of my beach houses.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Oh that's right, that's right, that's right, that's remember that.
That's right he had, that's right. Edie and I had
just sort of moved to l A and we wanted
to try mal and we looked at a lot of
houses to rent, and each one was worse than the next.
And then we walked into this house. There was absolutely
(05:10):
perfectly done, like you wouldn't change a thing nothing. It
was just flawlessly perfect. And Edie said in front of
the agent who hadn't given us the price yet. Oh
this is the one we wanted. What a great way
to negotiate, right, it was, but it was great. We
spent I don't know, you were three or four months
there and I remember the house is just fabulous.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, I remember you were raving about that house. Used
to call me like every day, you won't believe this house. Bliini.
I came out and saw you once, right, I said,
I'll split the rental with you. You didn't want you
didn't go for her. You know, Mark, I'm listening to
you and I'm reminiscent of a friend of mine. You know,
I kind of was raised in England because I was
(05:53):
like one of this kid teenage thing and it's all
over England and you're cocking me right.
Speaker 7 (05:59):
Yeah, I'm from my and I was born in my Lend.
Certainly within the sound of bowbells.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
One question I've got when I did the research was
you're a paratrooper.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Yes, I'm a veteran. I served in the third Battalion
Parachute Regiment, which is an elite unit in the British
Army of very famous regiments. The same regiment that jumped
into into Holland on on the movie A Bridge Too
Far so a big, big history Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
And then a nanny.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
Well yeah, I had well except for the people who
hired me were pretty smart in that I remember. But
that night they interviewed me and the guy said, you know,
well can you, but can you? It's not just taking
care of kids. Can you clean? I said clean? I
just left the British Army. They came around with a
white glove looking for dust on my locker. He said, oh,
(06:53):
can you do laundry and iron?
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Iron?
Speaker 7 (06:55):
Of course I could iron, I'm British. I could put
I could put a crease in your shirt so sharp
you could shave with it, sir. And then he said
to me, well can you cook? I said, sir, I'm British.
My mom can't even cook.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
And we know how famous British cooking is. Right, it's
got a still nil over there, Indian, Italian, etc. That's
so cool man to make that transition. It was. And
then you became an insurance salesman.
Speaker 7 (07:28):
Yeah, one thing you should know about working as like
a a bit security, bit of a driver, bit of
a cleaner.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, very good cleaning.
Speaker 7 (07:35):
Really, They end up hiring a cleaner to clean my
room actually at that house. But it was interesting to
move two Beverly Hills from living in East London in
my parents weren't a Ford Motor company, so all the
houses were the same in the whole town. Suddenly I'm
in a place where they've got like a TV in
(07:57):
my room, which is amazing because there's only ever one
television in our entire house was probably was a black
and white TV, and we had like all these cable
channels and Z Channel, which was the movie channel. I
couldn't even believe it get movies whenever you want. And
they actually had only one spare car, which they said,
oh you can use the spare car. It was a Mercedes.
I couldn't even believe. So now I'm living in Beverly Hills.
(08:18):
I've got color TV with movie channel and the Mercedes
to drive around in. But what I realized was that
two things. One, they love English people and they would
ask me things like do you know the Queen? I'm like,
what did you go to Eton or Oxford? And I'm like, Okay,
this is gonna be great. They have no idea. I'm
(08:40):
from working class and didn't even go to college. They're
assuming all English people are smart. Next thing I learned
was they, while being very, very wealthy, were not any
smarter than me. And I realized, you know what, this
America thing could really work out.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That's funny, that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Through them, mak The thing that threw them off about
you is you have perfect teeth. Rits are not necessarily
thanks the British Army dentists exactly. Those of us really
who didn't know you first found out about you because
you're the producer of The Survivor and you didn't just
go from being a nanny to hey, now producer of
(09:22):
this hot show. So what was sort of the give
us the genesis of that? How did that work that
you went from being a nanny to being, you know,
a producer of one of the highest rated shows.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
Well, I left that job because I got I still
got too close to the kids, and the kids were
spending more time with me than they were with their dad.
It makes I was fine and make it fun for them.
I think there's a bit of a jealousy thing comes
in there. So that wasn't going to work out. So
I got another job in Malibu for a guy who
owned insurance company, and you know, he said to me, eventually,
(09:55):
you can't do this river, you know, do you want
to work at my insurance company? And so I went
and waked at the insurance company. And while I was
doing that, I started selling.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
T shirts.
Speaker 7 (10:07):
During the lunch breaks at the insurance company and started realizing, Wow,
I'm making more money selling Schmatzer than I was at
the insurance company.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Side.
Speaker 7 (10:19):
Then I rented a piece of a fence on Venice Beach,
not even a store or a parking lot space, just
a fence. I hung the T shirts on the fence.
The fence was cost me like a thousand dollars a month,
but I made a fortune selling damaged T shirts. I'd
buy them for two dollars a piece downtown Los Angeles
(10:41):
and sell them for eighteen in the stores they were
saying for forty five. And the damages, by the way,
you couldn't even see. But they couldn't go to Nordstrom's
or Macy's. And so I left the insurance business. I
said to go, I'm so sorry, thank you for the opportunity.
And I thought it was gonna be mad at me,
and it's another great American he said, mad at you?
(11:02):
I'm thrilled. All I what you do is do well.
This is the American dream. I'm so glad you make
in your own way. What can I do to help you?
So I was expecting to be yelled at you let
me down at your job. The opposite, How can I
help you? I stayed within touch with that guy, I say,
you know, until he died. I mean until he died
I think ninety or something. I remember one day when
(11:23):
I was working at his house.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
In Malibu and.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
Said, you know, you're going to have a big future.
Then I went, I did Eco Challenges to show. First show,
then Survive A Survivor was going to come on at
a Memorial weekend. I'm at his house and I'm there
and an airplane flies by on the beach. I said, Survivor.
New series starts Wednesday, eight pm. He went, that's your show, right, Yeah,
(11:53):
it's my first network show. He said, wow, talk about
the American dream.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Mark.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
You know, you were a servant in this house and
you've got a network show coming on. I said, let's
hope it does well. He said well, he said, what
you can do if it does do well? I said,
you never know.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
He said, well, next door. The house next door is
for sale. Whoopy Goldberg was just looking at it. It's
a small house next door. I said, wow, that would
be a dream, wouldn't it to buy that small house
next door? He said, no, the American dream. You buy
this big house, and I moved next door. I'm like, well,
I learned from that guy how Americans really want to
(12:35):
support success. Don't try and pull you down. This is
a country where if you've got the goods and you
can do the work, you'll get the open doors for you.
As long as you can do it, you have every opportunity.
Now I am the American dream. If you just want
to look at go forward.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I came.
Speaker 7 (12:52):
I'm working as a servant in a couple of houses.
That house that first house, by the way, it was
six two for North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills. Thirty years later,
after making many shows, you know, it survived The Apprentice,
Fifth Grader, The Voice, Shark Tank. You know, I then
sold that company to MGM. Part of the deal was
(13:13):
to make me presidents of MGM. The first thing I
got there, they set the car for me. I had
no idea where MGM even was. I'm walking to the office.
They give a big office and wow, I can't even
believe office side of the apartment, and they made me
president of MGM. It was at the window. One way,
I could see the Hollywood sign. The other way, I'm looking.
(13:35):
Wait a minute, what's the address in this building, mister
Burnet is two four or five North Beverly Drive. I
could see the house from my office where I was
picking up Doug poop on the tennis court thirty years earlier.
That is the American dream.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yes, indeed, it is an incredible story. I mean, he
could just stop breaking. I mean, that's that's game over.
Dropped the mic. But my question is, and a lot
of the stories about your apocryphal. And I don't even
know if this is fully true as close as we
are as friends. But the story that I had heard
was that you went to various networks trying to sell
(14:16):
the idea of the Survivor, and you went to less
Moonvez at the time was the CEO of CBS, and
he said, you know, this is a really interesting idea,
but I can't sell it. I mean, I can't get advertisers,
and so I can't put I can't put it on
the air. And you said, what if I find the
advertisers and you did some sort of a revenue share
with him? Is that true or is that just a
(14:38):
made up story.
Speaker 7 (14:39):
It's totally true. It's totally true. It's even it's even crazier.
So I pitched the networks. ABC said yes, so I
had a contract with ABC or deal mother, but ABC
and ABC then so now excited, actually sold with as
networkshow you know, hadn't spent any money, but I imagined it,
(15:01):
you know, and then a few months later it just
says we're developing it. They said, oh, we're going to
cancel the contract. I said, what do you mean?
Speaker 1 (15:07):
We haven't been writing. I remember they.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
Said to me, what are you going to sue? ABC?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Get out here?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Right?
Speaker 7 (15:14):
And I thought, well, I guess they're right. I don't
even have hardly any money. How can I sue ABC?
CBS had already passed. But I went back in again.
I never met Les Movies. I'd pitched some person below him,
imagined it myself a meeting. I forget how with Les
Movies pitched it and exactly what you said, Skip. He said, look,
(15:37):
we want to do this because you can't make a pilot.
There's no one hour test case here. It can only
make the entire thing. So you know, first of all,
you've never made a network show Scerball. There's no pilot,
so we're trusting you for thirteen hours of network TV.
But he'd seen my previous show, which I had an
Emmy four called Eco Challenge. It was a nature kind
(15:58):
of discovery our show. So he liked my style what
I've done with it, and I said to him, well,
the thing if to learn, I know my mind overcoming objections.
Everyone has objections to what you're doing. Can you overcome
that objection? So first of all, discover what is the objection.
The objection wasn't he didn't like me. It wasn't. He
(16:21):
didn't think my style of making stuff was any good,
and he liked the idea. So is issue, he said,
was money. We're committing so much money to this and
without any test it's just too risky. Then I said
to him, how about we approached this like the Olympics
or he sell sponsors. Well, we'll sell five or seven
(16:42):
sponsors and I'll integrate their products into the show. And
he's like, what do you mean. I said, I did
it on Eco Challenge. My previous show on cable and
Discovery Channel where I put sponsors into it. Give me
a chance, is it Okay? Long as you go to
the app sizes with my sales team and you don't
(17:04):
embarrass us because we don't really know you. Okay, let's
try it, and if you sell four sponsors at X
number million dollars, I'll give you a deal. Anyway, I
went off my first team. I've never been outside of California, really.
I went to Minnesota. At Minneapolis in winter, I could
(17:26):
not believe the temperature, first of all, and I could
see these blonde guys who are like six foot eight
in shorts shoveling snow. Who are these people who live here?
This is crazy. I went there and Target was my
first meeting, and I pitched Target and I said, think
about this. These people are on an island. They're starving,
(17:47):
they're cold and uncomfortable. Imagine if we dropped to parachutes
with a big box of Target supplies and on top
of that, so the way that it will begin, you
what you want, the feeling you want from the audience
will be the excitement of the survivors who were dirty, smelly,
hungry to get this bag of supplies, pillows, some food,
(18:12):
some blankets, you know, stuff washing stuff, soap from Target.
But also I'll drop it from an aircraft on a
parachute and I'll make the parachute in the Target logo.
They literally said, and SEEBS executives sitting there just looking
at me, like who is this guy? And Target said, okay,
we're in. And Target at that point had never been
(18:34):
a CBS sponsor, so they were like, oh my god,
this is crazy. By the way, when I put that on,
what was great for Target that parachute where their logo
became a sunshade for the survivors. So that Target logo
was in about ten episodes, so imagine what they got
for their money. The second one, I went to Detroit,
I've never been to Detroit before, met with Ford Motor
(18:57):
Company and convinced them that later on, when there's only
like four left, there'll be a challenge and someone's going
to win a brand new car. I said, it's not
just the fact the car. I need the car shipped
to the island, but imagine the smell of a new car.
Imagine you've been on an island and the other had
the wash. Really for six weeks and you get to
(19:18):
sit in a brand new car. That new car smell,
the reaction they're going to give is going to really
expressly endorse how they feel about this new car. Ford said,
we're in. We'll do it. So Leslie Movie called me
a couple of days and they said, okay, you got
the deal. I said, oh, I've only sold two mister
movies and you told me yourself for said forget it.
(19:40):
I can't know what you're doing, but all my my
ads say, I can't believe this guy do this deal.
And the deal I made with him was once they
got their money back from all the costs. I mean
that I was going to get paid like three hundred
thousand or something like that for eighteen months work, so
not not that much but also not chump shut. And
(20:01):
the deal was once they got all their production costs back,
that would split fifty to fifty. Well, I remember the
show is so big. If you remember, it was massive.
So now we're three quarters away through the season, CBS
called me. Some lawyer calls me and says, we made
a mistake on the contract. I'm like, what, Yeah, the
(20:21):
contract says that after we get a cost back, you
get fifty percent. We're going to owe you ten million dollars.
I said, yeah, they would. They can't work. I mean
we didn't. We never imagine this. I said, okay, but
that's the deal, right. Well then the lawyer said, well,
can you forgive us this because the way it works
in TV, you don't realize Mark, the hits have to
(20:41):
pay for the failures.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yours is a big hit.
Speaker 7 (20:44):
We can make the money to pay for all the
shows didn't work. I said, it doesn't really help me.
I said, no, send me the shack, send me the scheck.
And so that year it's paid me ten million, three
hundred thousand dollars. And as you know now that that
first season, the final episode where Richard hatch It was
(21:07):
a single gay father, brilliant strategist won and seventy two
million people tuned in for the final episode of the
first Seas Survivor, the most watched summer series since Sonny
and Chare in seventy three.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Unbelievable. So you've heard of that.
Speaker 7 (21:27):
You've heard those guys, right, you've heard of those guys.
Study share it.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
There are my buddies. We still we're in the same
record company. Way back when I just saw a share
the other night at the Fountain Blue. Yeah, I go
way back with them. Hey, Mark. Aside from the money,
(21:52):
what do you think motivates people to sign up for Survivor?
Speaker 7 (21:55):
Different things? That's in the initial time, it was a combination,
but the million dollars obviously bad. It was one of
the first million dollar shows, and so that was a
big at the time. There's a lot now. The other
thing is marketing. I marketed it as a great adventure
in that when's the last time someone because they're going
(22:19):
to be on the island, what six seven weeks or
thirty nine days, It's about seven weeks. When's the last
time you went somewhere, had no one calling on with
no bills arriving, no phone calls, no one bothering you.
You're literally living a Swiss Family Robinson kind of adventure.
And so it was the adventurous spirit and the money,
(22:39):
and of course the idea of being on television. That's
a big motivator. Now later, now we are the twenty
twenty threes is twenty three years later. The forty fifth
season of the show, with two a year, just went
up in the ratings. Survivor during a season is unbeaten
(23:01):
in twenty three years Wednesday's eight o'clock, and it's evolved now.
You know, Jeff Probes is one of my best friends
in the world, is the host and producer of Survivor.
He's doing much more evolving than I've ever done. He's
you know, Jeff's been running the whole thing for the
last ten years and has evolved it to be much
more about the strategic game. So people now, Paul, sign up,
(23:23):
Yes for the adventure, Yes for the money, and of
course to be on television. Everyone wants that. But also
are they the greatest strategists can? Let me tell you
the underlying value proposition that is survival. Survivor is a
game where you are combining with others or alone to
eliminate your competitors. But the kicker is the very end,
(23:46):
when there's a couple left, all those people previously eliminated
by you, you're asking them to give you a million dollars.
It's the greatest management training thing in the world. Can
you fire someone who works for you and have them
shake your hand and say, Okay, I get it, I
was treated well thanks, versus be mad at you if
you've eliminated people in Survivor? Did you do it in
(24:09):
a way they respected?
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Do they like you still?
Speaker 7 (24:12):
And are they willing to shake you around and say,
you know what, you beat me, you got rid of me,
but you deserve a million dollars. That's the real underlying
value proposition of.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Survivor, So that partly hasn't changed. Zerra. What is the
biggest change from day one until now? How is this show?
You said it evolved? Yeah, I think.
Speaker 7 (24:32):
I think Jeff Probes and the team many of the team,
by the way, are the same team that I hired
on day one. Well, I have a philosophy, by the way,
running my companies. CEO to many people means chief executive officer.
It doesn't to me, it means chief encouragement officer. How
(24:52):
do you hire people better than yourself, you know, are
smarter than yourself and encourage them. Well, Jeff Probes is
the leader, not me now, and Jeff is the one
who's involved it. And it's become a very very slight
playing multi level chess. Right from the first minute, they're
figuring out how to eliminate their opposition and win, but
have the opposition still give them the money. It's become
(25:15):
even deeper in the game, and the audience have evolved
with it. You know what's very interesting. Netflix made a
big difference because saviv you can watch the old seasons
on Netflix. We have a massive new audience that weren't
even born when Survivor came on, but they discovered the
old seasons on Netflix. So Netflix's streaming service has really
benefited us by the old seasons being watched and now
(25:37):
they're tuning in for the new seasons. We have a
really young audience.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
And how involved are you at this point? We keep
talking about Jeff, but what is your involvement?
Speaker 7 (25:45):
I'm the executive producer. I'm there for guidance and advice
when asked. But the key thing, you know, when you
remember I've gone from that Eco Challenge and Survivor It's
first two shows. By the time I left MGM as
its chairman eleven months ago, I had fifty shows.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So how do you do that?
Speaker 7 (26:02):
You need to hire people better than you and be
a great delegator. And if you hire people who are
better than you, like Jeff Probes on Survivor, Clay Knuble
on Shark Tank, Audrey Morrissey who runs the Voice, these
are all handpicked by me, people I love and care about,
and they wouldn't really appreciate me showing up every five seconds. Oh,
(26:25):
move the camera slightly left, or do this?
Speaker 3 (26:27):
Do that?
Speaker 7 (26:27):
They're like, what are you crazy? They know what they're doing,
they know more than me. They mentioned this Skip, you
and me. Skip owned a store. It was a great store,
convenience store, making lots of money. We decided to open
the second one. Then you go to one, I go
to the other. Now it's not doing it as well
as we were both there, but it's still making great money.
Then we decide to open twenty stores. Neither of us
(26:48):
can be any of those stores in person. The key
is who are we hiring to replace ourselves and how
do we encourage them? We do know nothing can be
the same as if you were there yourself. But you
won't be able to expand and scale a business if
you can't hire people better than yourself and encourage them
and leave them alone once they know what they're doing.
(27:11):
There's nothing more annoying than some entrepreneur bugging the shit
out of their employees.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Good management style. All the good guys have great management
style like that, you just let your people go do
the buffets very much like that Warren lets his people go.
Is that kind of your management style?
Speaker 7 (27:30):
In fact, what I hire new people, I always would
say to them, for the next three months, I'm not
expecting anything. You may do some good things, but not
really expecting it. Whatever you do is a bonus. Just
learn and don't feel the pressure. And they once to
do craziest things because you don't really know yet how
it works. And then after that if they're not really
(27:51):
if everything's going too well, after that, something's wrong because
if you're not failing a bit, you're not really trying.
It's like if you learn to ski or snowboard. If
you're not falling over, clearly you're not trying. You're too cautious,
and so people will make mistakes. It's okay.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I'd rather they make mistakes than do nothing. Absolutely the
irony of your management style. Just give you a parable.
When I was a developer of office buildings in Connecticut,
one of my tenants was McDonald's and the regional vice
president of McDonald's name was Frank Bhin. He was showing
me the guidebook if you're a franchisee, and it said
(28:32):
six am put key indoors six ' oh one, switch
on Frio later six h two. You followed exactly the
way they laid it out. And of course one of
the things that McDonald's prides itself on is if you're
in a McDonald's in Minnesota when you were there to
see Target, or when you're in a McDonald's in Detroit
when you're visiting Ford, you're going to get the same meal,
(28:53):
and there's no creativity to it. So there's such a
creative aspect to what you've done and what you delegate
to your people like Jeff and others. It's just the opposite.
There's no real specific formula, right, it's just a lot
of it's making it up as you go along, but
knowing what to make up.
Speaker 7 (29:11):
Yeah, I am with Survivor. I was heavily involved probably
four ten years as well, and you know, the Voice
Less time, probably heavily involved for maybe yeah, the first
five years, maybe same as Shark Tank. Because as you
get more experienced than you people also people knew knew
(29:35):
and know my way of running things and the sort
of style of the shows and had seen the shows.
And if as you're hiring smart people who are respected,
who are well paid and encouraged. Yeah, and then look
now The Voice, Shark Tank Survivor. These shows have evolved
way beyond what I thought they would, and they're better
(29:58):
than what I could have done. I still was the
person to put them on the air, still an executive producer.
Get a lot of pats on the back, but I'm
not a person who likes when credit is stolen from
the people doing the actual work. Hollywood is full of
assholes who do very little and take all the credit,
(30:18):
and I will never do that. You know, for example,
I realized after quite a few years ago that it
was it was silly for me to get up on
the stage and accept the Emmys because I wasn't doing
the work anymore. I mean, not doing every the people
doing the day that people. I became like a general.
You know, the general in the army is not out
there in the trenches, are they that They're directing things
(30:40):
from behind the scenes, and that's how you scale. And
nothing can be worse than the person. Imagine the general
was taking credit as if as if it was really
out there firing on the front line.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
That's bullshit. Paul and I were talking about, you know,
the way you created all these shows, and Paul's a
creator also obviously in his career. But the common thread
(31:11):
with everything that you do, at least the way Paul
and I saw it, is the American dream, the Voice,
the American Dream, the Shark Tank. You know, someone has
a dream of a product that they can Is that
fair to say that, that's sort of the comment. If
there's a thread that runs through all these shows that
you've created.
Speaker 7 (31:30):
Absolutely, it's the American Dream. It's also you know what
I did the Voice. You remember, American Idol was pretty huge.
But American Idol its success was based upon humiliation, you know,
which was that the things they found try and find
deliberately bad singers, which was made they common up the
Gung Show sort of thing, but an updated version. You know,
(31:50):
when John Demore, there was a Dutch guy who came
up with the original idea for the Voice, and you know,
I've known him for a long time. I said, I'll
do this show with you. And what I liked was
that there was no humiliation. Every person on the Voice,
every person is good enough to win. They all can
(32:11):
actually sing in pitch. They're not sharp, they're not flat,
they're really good. And so where was the drama. That
the drama was in the coaches, the four famous singers
argue amongst themselves how to get that person on their team,
so completely flipped it. There was never any humiliation ever
(32:31):
of the contestants. Who's singing ever? And it was the banter,
the sitcom between the four coaches, and it flipped on
its head. And I think that it came at the
right time, because I think there came a point where
humiliation became come on, it's enough of this, Let's not
do this, and so survivor does humiliate the voice. My
other show, my dear show for the six hundred episodes
(32:54):
of Are You Smarter Than the Fifth Grader, which was
a show where ten year old cineclass and there were
people went to master's degree from UCLA, lawyers or doctors
or you know, professors were asked fifth greater questions. And
why that show was successible because the kids were never humiliated,
the kids knew the answers, and the kids were laughing
(33:15):
at the adults in a in a fun way, and
Jeff Foxworthy hosted it and never ever made anyone feel awful.
It was good fun laughter, but in a kind way.
And it's a show that made kids feel smart, because
clearly any of us, we're all smart, but try to
remember what things like questions like, for example, how do
(33:39):
you figure out the area of a triangle? You know,
like when's the last time we thought about things like that.
We haven't thought about those fifth grader questions in a lifetime.
But the kids are doing it right now, and so
the kids I was going to beat the adults of
another show right now on ABC called Generation Gap, which
has young kids with their grandparents. So for example, you
(34:01):
could ask a young kid, you give it a young
kid a rotary phone and ask them to make a
phone call. They have no cally they're pressing the buttons,
understand it turns or you could be asking the grandma,
who's Miley Cyrus? There's no clue, right, And so it's
a generation gap. Another thing, and yet again I do
that show with Jimmy Kimmel, a good fun entertainment. Why
(34:23):
I think that's Shark Tank. By the way, here's the
thing which you guys know, and Paul, you've been in
the public eye for your whole life, and you know
that the press can always try and rip us down, right,
So where a shark Tank came out. I did an
interview with the La Times, and I was trying to explain,
you know, here's how I look at it. Getting a
(34:44):
mortgage for a house is really hard, right, Imagine trying
to get a loan from a bank to start a business.
But at least the houses of Brooks and Mortar isn't
going in there. Oh, I want to take a loan
for this business. And so I thought that was a
good LA Times wrote a story and said, what a joke,
as if Mark Burnett knows what it's like to have
(35:06):
to apply for a mortgage. They turned it upside down
on me. But the headline that was in the story,
the headline was just a great new show, Shark Tank.
I had like five hundred friends say, oh man, great
story in the La Times. They never read the story, clearly,
they just read the headline. Had they read the story,
it was ripping me a new one.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Right, yeah, a great show. By the way, we're losing Cuban, right.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
Who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 6 (35:33):
You know what.
Speaker 7 (35:35):
It's happen what fifteen years? Who knows? I haven't spoke
to Mark about it, but a well, great guy, good friend,
and if so, you know it's the show's not about
any one person. You know, the show is which is
a show, you know. And if you look at the Voice,
look at many different coaches that has been on the Voice,
and right now with Shark ten, there's many many guest
(35:57):
sharks that come on and do about Shart Tank. Shark
Tank is my biggest co viewing show. It wouldn't think
because it's about selling businesses right or getting investment in businesses,
so you're doing maths of what percentage for what money.
The biggest audience that has is kids, kids watching with
(36:17):
their parents. The kids like it and the parents are
discussing business. I really think American education should change. I
think business and tax and stuff should be part of
the normal high school education. I mean it's like how
kids love Shark Tank and dealing with how companies are
bought and sold, how money's made in the end for
(36:39):
a capitalist economy could be a lot smarter for kids
to be taught in high school. These sort of underlying principles.
How does the government work, why are we paying taxes
when they do with the taxes? How does business work?
And how do you value a company? What kind of
companies would would be useful. Why would someone want to
buy our products? These are really valuable every things could
(37:00):
help people grow in their lives.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
What's next for you? Is there something on your bucket
list that you've yet to do that's exciting for you.
Speaker 7 (37:08):
You've got a few things come my way that Yeah,
I think I'm interesting in the travel business.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Travel.
Speaker 7 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah, I remember my shows have been all over
the world, right, I've probably as a producer. I don't
think there's probably any producer in the world who's made
more forum based shows than me. I mean, so, yeah,
So I'm interested in them. I think travel is a
very clean business, right, and I think Americans, by the way,
some of the best tourists. Americans are very clean. Americans
(37:39):
put their trash in the trash can Americans tip Well,
it's a great country, you know. And so I like
the idea that sustainable travel. I like the idea that
where some economies in the developing world might do a
less clean kind of business if they can have tourism.
Tours are very clean, sustainable business, and it encourages people
(38:03):
to protect certain places because if places are made to
be ugly with architecture or too many neon lights, unless
it's obviously in Vegas, but people don't want to go there.
Places that are remained cute and pretty and charming are
attractive to tourists, So I'm interested in that.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So, Paul, speaking of travel, Mark and I were on
a flight from Los Angeles to New York and we
were at forty one thousand feet and suddenly the plane
was a lot quieter, and the pilot came on and
told us that we had just lost the starboard engine
at forty one thousand feet and they were going to
(38:43):
look for an airport put the plane down. So I
know Mark so well, and I know how spiritual he
is in his life, and I looked over at him
just to try to get some spirit. We flew that
about a half an hour on one engine until we
landed at an airport in Colorado. And I remember, Mark,
(39:04):
if you do that. When the pilot came out of
out of the cockpit and he came back to us
and he said, wow, that was exactly like the simulator.
Mark looked at him and said, I'm glad you were
trained in that simulator.
Speaker 7 (39:17):
That was quite an experience to encourage your listeners to
you know, is interestingly, had you not told a skip
we wouldn't have known, right, So basically he landed it
as good as one engine as too. So it's very
encouraging for people to hear that because you think, oh,
I mean obviously telling us that was like what you know?
We looked at each other, Oh shit, right, So you
(39:38):
don't know, I've never had that before. You know, I've
been a parachute ber. I didn't need a parachute with
me what it jumped out, but it landed.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
They know what they're doing. They can fly those places
unless you unless you're over the Pacific, that's the biggest
body of water. You don't want to lose an engine.
But with one engine, you're you're gonna do fine as
well as you can land somewhere. You know, people are
spooked out about aircrafts and flying. They've got it down today.
When you look at the reports of the crashes, it's
always man made seventy two deficiency in pilots.
Speaker 7 (40:11):
Well, who knew the poor anchor work for the FAI.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
I read enough about it, FAA fun anchor. I don't
mind flying. I've been flying since I was a kid.
You know, there were prop planes and I'm what fifteen
years old. I'm on with Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats
Domino and Buddy Hawley and we're doing rock and roll shows.
We're only five hundred bucks a week and loving it.
(40:35):
And we're on the rinky dink planes. We're going to Australia. Okay,
so that's La Hawaii, stop in Hawaii, stop somewhere else
land in Australia, like what light years ahead? We didn't care.
We didn't care until it started kicking in. But those
were tough flights. You know, today's travel is just it's
(40:55):
like being in your own bedroom, so easy. Didn't like
it then though.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So Mark, because you know, because this is a new
thing for the two of us and we're just getting started,
we're looking at different little ideas and one was that
our producer Jordan came up with where with sort of
a lightning round of questions and just wanted to get
your take on these. When is how many hours of
nay to sleep do you get?
Speaker 7 (41:20):
I aim aim for eight and don't always get eight,
but I aim for eight. I got to bed early.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
What time you go to bed?
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah? What time do you go to bed? Good question?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
So you're you're religiously in bed by nine nineteen thirty
every night, not every single but.
Speaker 7 (41:36):
Yeah, I pretty much try and do that. Especially I
live in Park City up here, so my goal is
to be on my snowboard by nine am, so I
would get up early. I do my I have a
book called Jesus Calling that I read every day and
I pray. I pray that a huge priority to me
and the Holy Spirit and a snowboard. So I'm in
(41:58):
a place that I remember. I've been forty years of America,
thirty years of my TV companies, sold my company three times,
first to Hurst, then to MGM, then I owned three
percent of all of MGM, sold that to Amazon. So
I'm ready for a break. You know, in the old days,
the word sabbatical is around Sabbath, right once a week.
(42:19):
So in the Bible, God rested on the seventh day.
In the old days, people who had some sort of
means would take a year off in every seven years,
which we don't have that are doing. And so you know,
i still have to have some responsibility on my shows,
but I'm definitely not overscheduling myself and I'm actually living
(42:41):
the dream and getting a good sleep is part of it.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Oh, it's very important, especially in our age. But those balls,
those back balls are wide and beautifully groomed. Last time
I skied up there, you're still enjoying all that.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
I love it every day.
Speaker 7 (42:54):
I mean I'm going to every day.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Then.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, great balls, white and smooth. It's some of the
best grooming I think there.
Speaker 7 (43:03):
But they say you saw best snow on earth because
it's like Champagne's pot.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
It's so light.
Speaker 7 (43:08):
You can as you pick the snaup and blow it
with your blow air out and it goes in the sky.
It's okay, Skip, what's next? Next question?
Speaker 1 (43:16):
You know earlier you're talking about these shows and how
you've delegated. That's been important thing. But what's one thing
that you have to do yourself that you would never delegate? Pray? Yeah,
you can't delegate that, but you can teach it to people.
What would you say is your standard lunch? Just typically
on an average day, you're so fit, but what do
you what do you do for a line coach? Salmon
(43:37):
and vegetables? There you go, skip.
Speaker 7 (43:39):
You know me, I'm very regimented a military guy, being
a really top military unit and therefore, but if I
have a fault, it's I had the same lunch every day,
three to sixty five days a year. I learned recently
from a doctor it's not wise. Your body doesn't do well.
It needs a variance of food, So I'm trying to
(44:01):
add new things in.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
But I.
Speaker 7 (44:04):
View food as fuel. So I literally have oatmeal for breakfast, coach, salmon,
and vegetables for lunch, sometimes also a dinner, or maybe
I've started eating some elk and venison there. So meat
do's not got any antibiotics or any crap in it.
I'm very regimented, regimented, and disciplined. You're very disciplined completely,
(44:27):
I have to and sometimes you've said to me, what
sort of things I hate in life? I dislike people
who don't take responsibility for failure. There's always someone else's fault.
I in a military unit like I was in, things
go wrong. First of all, when you're in the middle
of a mission, or even when I was doing these
(44:48):
races in the mountains, no point arguing about a mistake
was made in the middle of it. But afterwards, ever debrief,
take response. If you made a mistake, take responsibility and
move on. Everyone's going to give you a break, especially
American don't mind you making mistakes and failing, long as
you take responsibility.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And try it and don't do it again.
Speaker 7 (45:04):
If you're a person carrying a pot of paint and
you drop it and splashes, people say, oh, right, but
you guess I'm Sorry's mistake you that again? The same
But what don't come near me. You're you're the idiot
that dropped the pot of paint twice. Take responsibility and
don't make the same mistakes. Man, learn from it with
all your strength and all your discipline. What would you
(45:26):
say is your greatest weakness that I need to take
more time to slow it down and be a bit
still because running all those shows. I remember, remember we
started this discussion, went over and became a servant in
Beverly Hills, and on the same street became the present
(45:47):
of MGM. Right, that's like, it's so much busyness and
stuff going on, and it's like it's like an engine
that you wind up, you know, and it's and then
now I'm taking it's slower. It's hard to slow down
the engine. And if you can't slow the engine down,
you're not really in touch with the spirit. And so
(46:07):
that's what I've got to work on. Being a bit more.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Still, so in terms of things that might annoy you,
what would be like the biggest pet peeve? People who
don't tell, responsibility bothers, a consistency.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
There right for sure, you have a military man there.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
So other than one of Paul's songs, what would you
say is your favorite song?
Speaker 7 (46:27):
Probably Van Morrison astral Weeks.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
I love Van Morrison.
Speaker 7 (46:33):
Yeah, that is one of my wife, Roman Downey, who
played the angel on Touch My Angel.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
She's Irish.
Speaker 7 (46:40):
One of her best friends is Van and Van's been
at our home fifty times. He's a genius. I know
you know him, Paul the Genius and astral Weeks is
played one of my favorite songs of all time.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
If you have your eyes of producing the Oscars, No, no,
because never never, never interested.
Speaker 7 (47:10):
No because I don't believe they would listen to me.
I mean, clearly, it's improving to think about the Oscars.
A network TV show, which means it's a broad audience.
Broadcasting is not narrowcasting. It's broadcasting, and therefore, would it
be wiser for a show on broadcast TV to be
(47:33):
celebrating what many many people enjoy it, not just what
a few voters in the Academy were liked. Therefore, many
many times you just to come on, it's won by
a movie that no one's seen or even heard of.
And so now that's the privilege of the Academy, and
I respect that, but maybe it should be on a
narrow a narrow cast like a cable or or something
(47:57):
where it's a narrow cast broadcast. TV is for a
wide audience, and so I'd be suggesting different categories and
also would be suggesting there should be a fan voted category.
I mean, I've produced the MTV Movie Awards for seven
years and I think so six or seven years, and
the People's Choice Awards for the same time. Those two shows,
(48:21):
the awards are given by the fans who vote for them.
But for example, the Grammys, the Grammys also could do
with some fan voted categories, you know, just to engage people,
to make them care about did their vote count?
Speaker 2 (48:33):
You know, what do you feel un artificial intelligence sounds
is going to change your world?
Speaker 7 (48:37):
I think it's great. I think it's a great thing.
I think it's going to be medical advances, science advances. Yeah,
and obviously a lot of people are scared of it
because they think it might hurt their job. But listen, Paul,
You've been around long enough to know that if one said, oh,
television is going to kill radio, before that, oh radio
is going to kill live theater, and then oh, cable
(49:00):
TV is going to kill network TV, and streaming is
no good, and then oh, their stream is going to
kill movies. It's all going to exist. It's just adapts.
You can't be scared of new technology. And in the end,
what is AI doing is it's computers are reading everything
(49:20):
ever written and analyzing what it means. Right, And so yeah, well,
there'll be songs written by AI, there'll be movies written
by AI. Of course they will be. On the other hand,
think of this when someone has said they're creating a
script for a movie. Their whole life, they've grown up
as a child in a house the first few years
(49:42):
with their siblings and their parents have learned things. Then
have seen TV and learned things. They've learned to read
book and they've learned things when to school and learning.
The whole brain is that their computer, it's got knowledge
has been dumped into it. So AI is just doing
a super duper version of that. So let's say someone
like unk knowing but that Taylor Sheridan who wrote brilliantly Yellowstone.
(50:04):
Of course Taylor Sheridan was affected in his art by
all the Westerns he's ever seen. But you can't say
you should only be able to create something if you've
never seen something similar. I mean, it's ridiculous. AI is
a supervisioner. There will be problems, there's always problems stuff,
But I do think it's going to be a benefit
for humanity and clear the other thing you've seen recently
(50:26):
in congressional testimony and stuff, the US government is omitting
that we do have aircraft from outside of humanity, from
other planets, and actually even mentions biologics, which means that
non human intelligence has been recovered by the US government,
and some reason that they have been a hard time
telling us the taxpayers, who are their bosses, right, we're
(50:50):
the bosses of government and AI clearly in analyzing where
did these space draft come from? What is it we
could learn this speed of which learning and hopefully for
humanity and peace could grow faster by AI, we're much
quicker than humans trying to do it.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah, it's a coming force, for sure, it's happening.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
If I could just pivot back. It was just thinking
for a second when you're talking about, you know, your
spirituality and your wife. Roma. She's a ten in every way,
drop dead, gorgeous, wonderful person, incredibly spiritual. Sends me messages
all the time. I think I've told you I get
a kick out of these. You know, it slows me down,
to be honestly, I suffer from the same disease Paul
(51:36):
does too, just trying to do too much, going so fast.
And when I read one of those notes from Roma
that she sends out to her friends, it makes me
really take pause and think about it. But was she
the one that made you a spiritual person? Or are
you the one that made her a spiritual person? Or
did you just happened to both be spiritual people that
(51:57):
came together.
Speaker 7 (51:58):
She grew up Catholic in Ireland in the Troubles, which
is the name for the war in Ireland between the
Catholics and Protestants and Britain, and her brother as a priest,
Roma's been guiding to church her entire life, the Church
ofr entire life. Interestingly, Roman never tried to make me anything.
This was really cool about Roma. She just her way
(52:20):
of getting someone to do something is lead by example.
Just she just does it. If you think it's cool,
you might do it too.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
It doesn't tell you it.
Speaker 7 (52:29):
One of my faults is I would try I want
a quick result. I'd run tell someone to do something,
explain why they should do it and why they're wrong
to not do it. She would never do that. But
what really made men? I mean, I grew up Christian?
I mean, but what does that mean? That means it's
Christmas and Easter. It doesn't mean the certain Jews that
don't go to synagogue every every week, they go to
high Holy Days and stuff. So just because you're a
(52:51):
dura Christian or it doesn't mean that you are spiritually
involved with it. But when I decided, along with my
wife in twenty eleven, to start making the Bible series,
I originally wanted to do it because I thought there
was a vacuum in the marketplace. One hundred and fifty
million Christians. You know, obviously many many less Jews in
(53:12):
the world, but the Judeo Christian faith would enjoy seeing
a show about the Bible, the most read book on Earth. Well,
I got ripped a new one in the press, right,
how ridiculous an executive Hollywood who didn't like my success said,
oh great, he's going to fail. He's got all these
big shows. No one is going to watch the Bible
(53:34):
on prime time TV. Well they were wrong, and I
was right because the Bible on a Sunday night was
up against Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, and the
Bible had more viewers than Walking Dead and Gamer Thrones combined,
and the CNN headline said God beats zombies. Now, my
(53:56):
spirituality came as a result. So I'm smarter to know.
You don't get to make the Bible series international series
and get it wrong. If you get the Bible wrong,
it's game over. So I made I made my mission
to really study. Hired forty experts to teach me and
(54:18):
to read every script and give notes forty forty different
disagreeing people, because Cadies and Protestants are not the same
and Jews are not the same. I even had Muslim advisors,
because you know, there's parts of as parts of the
Abrahamic Covenant. That's where that came from. And partially through
studying it and partially just through the Holy Spirit, that
the supernatural part of faith. It just came to me
(54:42):
and certain things skip and I've told you this, but
I'd say that publicly certain things. I don't know how
I knew. I just knew it was right and put
it in the series. It turned out to be correct,
you know. And that serious huge. I mean, do you
know that's that series? It was Pirate in China. Four
hundred million Chinese people watched it. I gave it away
(55:04):
to Russia. I gave the series to Russia for free
Russian TV. In Russian one hundred and fifty million Russians
watched it. It was a number one series in Spain,
in Portugal, in Canada, the first night it went on,
it was up against the first NHL hockey game and
the Bible beat hockey in Canada.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
That's true. That's a headline, the Bible beat hockey.
Speaker 7 (55:26):
I remember that Oprah, who we've known for years, called
as I said, guys, I'm on week four in the Bible.
It's amazing, this is crazy. It's the water cooler talk
of America. Can I come and do a two hour
special from your house? So Oprah came. Remember the Opien
line was to the American public, the Bible is the
water cooler talk of America. What is going on We're
(55:48):
going to find out the next two hours with Mark
and Roma. Because Oprah is a person, a believer of
faith and got to know a lot of people through
that tier perry of various people who encouraged us. I
would say, if I look back at my career, the
biggest highlights of my career, Survivor and the Bible.
Speaker 2 (56:06):
Was the most useful failure you've ever had, Mark, most.
Speaker 7 (56:09):
Failure, Well, every failure actually is useful. I take responsibility
and learn from it.
Speaker 1 (56:15):
First off.
Speaker 7 (56:16):
But some shows that I wish did better. Two shows.
One was rock Star in Excess where Michael Hutchins unfortunately,
as you know, died, It left in Excess without a
lead singer. And I did a show on CBS good
rock Star in Excess where we found the new lead
singer called JD. Fortune became the new lead singer of
(56:36):
Inexcess and two world tours with it. But the show
didn't go more than two seasons. It was hard to Yeah,
I wished by what I should have done season two.
I should have went to Queen and asked, you know,
obviously they have a new singer there. It's it's hard
to find a band that needs a new lead singer.
It wasn't a sustainable idea, so that was kind of
a failure in that Look at my shows go decades.
(57:00):
That show went only two years.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
Right.
Speaker 7 (57:03):
Another show that I loved I did a show called Contender,
a boxing show with Sebesto Stallone and Shurenn Leonard that
went four seasons. I wish that was still That was
such a brilliant thing because if you think of the
value proposition for Contender, no rich person who's advantage is
getting the ring to become a boxer professionally. These are
(57:23):
guys who are on the wrong side of the tracks,
and literally no one wants to get posting the face
to make their living unless you have to and feature family.
Working with Stillane, who was a friend of mine, was amazing.
I learned so much from Sly. Sly said to me, Mark,
let me explain how to make Contender better. He said,
look at Rocky. What do you think Rocky is about?
I said, it's about Rocky. He said, in a way.
(57:46):
Watch Rocky again, but watch it through Adrian's eyes. I'm like,
oh wow, he said, Look how many times the camera
cuts to Adrian's face in Rockies boxing. Yet more knowledge
and understand an emotion from that than watching Rocky get
punish on it. But so I then on Contender made
a big thing about the families and the loved ones
(58:08):
and cameras on them when their loved one was fighting.
The loved ones fighting to feed the family because they're
from poor families, and while their parents and wives and
kids want to encourage them, they're not hiding when they're
getting hit, and the great way of letting people understand
the value of this drama. So that was another show.
(58:29):
It went four seasons. So I consider that a failure
because I you know why, it's your ten years, twenty years.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
This is such great for me because I'm with two
of my closest friends together in a conversation and the
two of you have a lot in common, but one
thing you have in common you both have amazing instincts.
I mean, you think about these shows that you've done.
They have been so successful, and some people, of course
would write it off to luck. It's not luck. Same
with Paul. You know you hit. Paul's instincts are straight on,
(59:01):
and that's why you know his career has endured the
way it has, and this is why your career has
endured the way it has and the other common denominator.
I think Paul correct me if I'm wrong. I think
Paul wrote Buddy Holly's last song, right, wasn't it one
of them? It doesn't matter any songs he recorded before
he died.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
He was he was a very good friend of mine,
and I was kind of guiding his career. You know,
he's going through some problems with management and the group,
et cetera, et cetera. And he wanted to, you know,
elevate two strings and the kind of production that I
was doing, and they were going to open a company together.
And he called me after he got married and he said,
(59:40):
you know, I want to do a big band kind
of arrangement. So I wrote, it doesn't matter anymore, and
then we put him on tour. But you know, the
best late plans. We were all eager to get to
the next city. You know, we didn't travel and style
back then. These were all buses, not well appointed, and
a lot of it was in weather. So every now
and then we kind of contemplate taking a plane, any plane,
(01:00:03):
to get to the next city. Get your laundry done.
And Buddy was taking pilot lessons in Teterborough. So we
sent him out on that tour and the weather was
pretty bad and you wanted to get to the next city,
and he convinced this pilot to take he and the
bopper I think Richie Allen's to the next city. Well,
(01:00:23):
you know, they never got off the ground. It was disastrous,
but that's the day the music died, you know, and
it was he was going to be my music partner,
and we traveled all over the world. He was huge
in Great Britain, Scotland. I mean, they love Buddy, all
the English primarily back there. In the earlier years they
were emulating what we were doing, and then they finally
(01:00:44):
got to do it better. The only guy that waylaid
their plans is when Hendrick sit Town I was over there.
I told you guys, every great guitarist wound up in
that little club and Jimmy got up and he started playing.
Well half of them were ready to go home and
commit suicide because I couldn't believe how amazing he was,
you know. So he changed that landscape. But the British,
(01:01:05):
you know, they turned it right around and did it
better than we did and came over here and swept
us away. And if I wasn't a writer, I don't
know what kind of career i'd have, you know, writing
those little teenage songs. But I did Tonight Show Theme
and Longest Day, just kind of stayed active and had
the gravitass of writing. But the English force was really
you know, when I met the Beatles and knew them,
(01:01:26):
and I'd come back to my agents over here to
talk to them, say, there's these kids, you know, the Beatles,
they'd said, what what Beatles? I mean Beatles? I said,
the Beatles. They got here, but I said, you got
to see them, and I think Normy Weiss and Sid
Bernstein they flew over and made the deal, brought them
over Shay Stadium at Sullivan. You know the rest of
the story. They became the factor. They were it man.
(01:01:47):
They blew us out of the water.
Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Amazing. So Mark, I know we're keeping you off the slopes,
but you want to tell you at number one, I'm
glad we didn't have our buddy Holly moment you and
I together at that time. Secondly, I need you to
work on your golf game, although looking over your shoulder
with that snow, I don't think you can do it
up there unless you have a I'm taking lessons on
the simulator. So actually, you know, I'm pretty focused and
(01:02:12):
the most important thing, one of the most important things
to me will be to beat you in the next
few years. I look forward to it. Really appreciate you
doing this. I know you don't do this, so that's
greatly appreciated. You were terrific.
Speaker 7 (01:02:26):
Of course, Skip, you could not find in the last
every yes, I would ever do this except for that
close friendship. I'm grateful. It was a good conversation. Thank you, Paul,
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Pleasure, Ski, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Take care.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Our Away with Paul, Anka and Skip Bronson is a
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
The show's executive producer is Jordan Runtogg, with supervising producer
and editor Marcy Depina.
Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
It was engineered by Todd Carlin and Graham Gibson and
mixed and mastered by Doug Bone.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Paul Anka
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