Dropping like Fleiss (Part 2)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the most dramatic podcast ever and I heart
radio podcast. Welcome to the most dramatic podcast ever. I
am Chris Harrison coming to you with a breaking news
edition of the most dramatic podcast ever. We dropped a
podcast earlier on this Thursday about Mike Flie, the creator

(00:24):
of The Bachelor, leaving the franchise. They announced it early
Tuesday morning, the night after the franchise finale, and it
was kind of a nice departure that he was just
stepping away. Laura and I in our podcast mentioned that
there just seemed to be more to this story. And
I also knew, and I talked about this, that I

(00:46):
knew of several journalists that were working on stories. Well,
I thought the other shoe would drop. I just didn't
know it would happen this quickly. So we are coming
to you again late Thursday night. It's now about ten
o'clock Austin time, Central time. Three articles have now dropped
about this situation, one from Variety, one from Deadline that

(01:08):
goes kind of deep into an ABC overall deal, and
then a very interesting bombshell article written by Matt Bellany,
a journalist who has an industry newsletter called the Puck
and he is also the host of an industry podcast
called The Town. I track Matt down. He's nice enough
to join me live tonight to talk about all of this. Matt,

(01:31):
what have you discovered? So, Mike Flice, the creator of
The Bachelor, someone you must know, Yes, very well, my
boss for twenty years. Yes, he announced this past week
that he was leaving the show after twenty one years.
And it was a very flowery statement, filled with inspirational

(01:54):
language about how everyone helped him and you know, he's
very excited about the future and it's the right time
to step down. So I learned this week that that
wasn't the case. You came out in this article and
the headline reads, The Bachelor loses its cold black heart.
Your first sentence, A round of applause on the Warner

(02:17):
Brothers lot is probably in order, for she's the Warner
Brothers attorney who investigated this. What made you feel so
comfortable coming out firing in this article? Well, Slice is
one of those notorious figures. And it's weird talking to
you about this because I know you're not allowed to
talk about it, but sort of I know you know,

(02:39):
and you can't say this stuff I can, because obviously
I'm not involved with the show in any way. But
he was a pretty notorious figure in the reality TV community,
known as just kind of being a jerk and vindictive
and you know, going after people he perceived to be

(02:59):
his end means. And he had this thing where he
did not believe that the Bachelor franchise should be racially diverse,
and his arguments, according to people that I've talked to,
stem from the fact that the audience he didn't believe
would like it, and he was forced to make changes

(03:19):
over the years. But many people who worked on The
Bachelor felt that he was not the right person to
be there, and there were complaints that were made about him,
and that culminated with this Warner Brothers investigation that I
wrote about this week. And it looks like you know,
in reading through your article, and by the way, there's

(03:41):
also now three three articles have dropped. There's the Variety article,
a Deadline article has dropped about an ABC deal. You
and I are going to get to that here in
just a little bit. And of course your article that
is in um on Puck and I'm sure we'll be
talking about it on your podcast The Town. You know.
One thing I can say is it was interesting when

(04:02):
I even when I was on the show, and then
afterwards when I would go into meetings, pitch meetings, what
have you, people would always stop and say, okay, but
first you got to tell us stories. You gotta tell
us what was it really like? There really was? And
I take it this is what I want to hear
from you, because you are known industry wide. What was
the feeling? What do you what was the idea of

(04:24):
Mike Flice out there? He was this dark genius that
people believed had an idea originally for a show that
cut through. There were a million dating shows out there,
and this one became the huge franchise. Why is that so?

(04:44):
I mean, I'm sure you would argue and had a
great host that was mostly it. Timing is timing is everything.
It was lightning in a bottle. I think it hit
the right chord at the right time, and it was
produced very well, very well produced, and it appeared during
that there was this cauldron of creativity in nineteen ninety

(05:06):
nine to two thousand and two where most of the
big reality franchises that still power the industry today. We're
talking millionaire Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol, The Bachelor. Those
shows all debuted in that three year period between ninety
nine and two thousand and two, and it was right

(05:28):
when people were accepting of this format. And here comes
this very well produced dating show that has a mix
of fantasy and this darker, kind of machiavellian twist on
it where the women are all competing for the affection

(05:49):
of a man, and it struck a chord and he
was definitely part of that. From everything that I have,
everyone I've talked to said, this is not a guy
who got lucky and attached himself to something that was
going to be a hit. Regardless, he absolutely contributed to
the success, especially in the early years of the show.

(06:11):
But other than Bachelor and Bachelor related shows, he never
created another show that was a hit, and he became
a presence on the show that was I don't want
to use the word toxic. I think that gets thrown
around a lot, but people that work on the show
did not consider him a positive influence. You know, you

(06:32):
mentioned in the article you called his farewell statement ridiculous,
and part of that statement really seemed to try to
distance Mike from the show. And they actually used the
term ten years that he hadn't really been a part
of those show for the last decade. You took issue

(06:56):
with that. Yeah, he's still around, he's you know, it's
a sporadic appearance. From everything that I have heard, he
was still involved. And why were they trying to distance
in that statement? Why were they trying in your mind
as a lawyer, putting on your lawyer hat because I
know you are, Why try to distance him from the
franchise like that. Well, there's there's controversies that have played

(07:19):
out over the past decade. I mean, namely the show.
There was a discrimination complaint filed against the show, claiming
that it systematically excluded black people. And there were the
personal scandals that he had, I mean, he was he
was accused of beating his pregnant wife, which he has denied.

(07:40):
He got into this fight with his neighbor in Malibu
where he allegedly was playing loud barking noises in the
middle of the night, and you know, got into the
controversy there. There was everything that happened that led to
your exit from the show, and the controversy surrounding the
Matt James season of the Bachelor. So there's a lot

(08:01):
of stuff that this show has endured. I mean, to
its credit, it still has an audience, although the audience
has gone down significantly over the past few years, but
it's still endures and I think ABC and Warner Brothers
would like it to continue on. Well does it I
think that's the multi multimillion dollar question. Does it endure? Matt?

(08:22):
You know much has been made and you mentioned as
much in your article about the ratings. Obviously they've been
declining show after show, season after season, and you know
this Monday's finale was the lowest in history. Does this
show endure? Does this show survive? I think it does

(08:42):
because as much as the ratings have declined, it's still
generating an audience larger than other stuff you put in
that place. It is a franchise that people know, and
we are not seeing the streaming numbers for the show.
For all we know, the streaming numbers are large, the
magical streaming numbers that nobody really ever knows and people

(09:05):
can talk about. I know, I know, but you gotta
assume that there is an audience for this show that
is finding it on streams. There definitely is still an
audience for this show. There's still an appetite for it.
I mean, it's obviously the social relevance is is diminished incredibly,
so have the ratings. But as you said, even if
you're just taking the network ratings, it's still viable. It

(09:27):
still makes money. They they definitely need this to stay. Yeah,
and I could see other franchise elements going away before
the flagship goes away. You know, maybe they don't need
Bachelor in Paradise right or hours start getting cut down,
it moves nights. Yeah, there's a Bachelor at every other year.

(09:48):
It'll be death by a thousand paper cuts. It's not
going to be the guillotine, is what you're saying. Yeah,
and I and I don't you know, or maybe they
figure out some way to reinvent it. You know. One
of the criticisms of the show is that it feels
very familiar. Each year. It's been on for twenty one years,
You're going to be familiar with it. It's a format
in these contestants are plugged into a format, and that's

(10:10):
part of the reason why it endures. You know, what
you're getting one thing I want to dive into. You
mentioned it and then the Deadline article really went into this,

(10:32):
and let's try and explain this in layman's terms so
everybody can kind of understand the impact of why this
is important. I'll give everybody the set up because it's
kind of hard to explain that The Bachelor itself is
owned by a production company, Mike Flice's production company, Next Entertainment.
Next Entertainment is kind of owned and operated was owned
and operated by Warner Brothers, Warner Horizon. That's the studio

(10:55):
we were on ABC, So that's the network we were on.
So it's kind of a three headed monster, if you will.
Somewhere along the way, Mike was offered an overall deal
at ABC. That's the report, and you and Deadline both

(11:15):
have said that overall deal is dead. Can you explain
a little bit more about how someone would go from
Warner in this situation to ABC? Why is this significant? Well,
it's significant because presumably if Mike flies is based at
Warner Brothers, they would want all of his producing services

(11:36):
and all capacities for anything he does outside of the Bachelor.
This we don't know the details on what why I mean,
we don't know the details on what this deal would
have entailed. Or why Warners would have wanted him to
go over there, But it seemed like Warners didn't want
to deal with him anymore. Well, would they have wanted

(11:59):
him to go over there? Or did he do that
himself or was somebody Maybe he did it himself, Maybe
he found I mean, he's very friendly with Rob Mills,
who is the head of unscripted shows at ABC. Maybe
there was a relationship there and he said come on,
come on over. There was a new division that was
being launched, and he probably may have said, come on

(12:21):
over and do something for us here. It may have
been Warners not wanting to deal with him anymore. But
on the ABC behalf and again, you're you're the lawyer here.
Doesn't that if you know there are problems, you know
there are issues on the horizon, doesn't that open you
up to Well, my understanding is that this was scrapped

(12:42):
when those issues became apparent gotcha, and that when the
investigation began, the ABC deal went away. I don't think
this is played out yet. I think maybe that's the
next question. Is this over? I don't think it's over.
I think that there will likely be more coming out
about some of the onset behavior some You know that

(13:06):
a number of people on the show have engaged a lawyer,
the same lawyer that you used when you left the show,
and they are pursuing potential claims against the show, maybe
for retaliation. There was a group of executives that were
put in charge of the show that some people on

(13:26):
the show have said, you know, maybe we're not as
experienced as some of the others who have been with
the show longer and perhaps deserved a shot to run
the show. A lot of un answered questions at this point. So, Matt,
one thing that I do know is that the show
is in production. They're shooting The Bachelorette, the next season
of The Bacherette right now. And having been a part
of this franchise for twenty years, I know this is

(13:49):
weighing on the crew on the cast. Obviously this has
gotten around. Yeah, you're kind of in the bubble, but
that doesn't you know, this will permeate the bubble, and
so all these producers that we're already in turmoil are
now dealing with this. So it is a lot. And
speaking of a lot again, I want to say thank
you because you just dropped this story about an hour ago.

(14:11):
You jumped on with me. Is there more you're digging
into and more you're working on? Oh? Absolutely, I'll have
more up on the puck website, puck dot News, and
we'll definitely be talking about on The Town podcast, probably
in the next week or so. But yeah, there's more
to this story, So the Puck Dot News and of
course the great podcast The Town, which you cover the

(14:32):
industry so brilliantly. I often want to jump on and
argue with you and debate you, but that's why it's
a good podcast, and that's why you're welcome. Well continued
success on this story, great job, great article. Investigative reporting.
Journalism is not dead apparently, and maybe we reconvene next
week and dive into this a little more when we

(14:54):
have more information. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you again,
my thanks to Matt Bellany as this this is a
very fluid situation and much more is going to continue
to spill out. This is just the first night. First
three articles from Variety, Deadline and Matt Bellany, who's been
so gracious to join us tonight, have written these articles.

(15:15):
But this is the tip of the iceberg and things
like this, and I'm sure more will come out. We
will stay on it. I will keep you up to date.
And what I'm really interested in too is what is
this going to do to you? What's it going to
do to Bachelor Nation, what's to due to the viewers?
What is your perspective of this, does it matter to you?
And will it affect the show anymore? We will dive

(15:36):
into all of this. We will revisit this next week.
We will have a brand new episode for you Monday.
Until then, have a great weekend and next time we
have a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening.
Follow us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever
and make sure to write us a review and leave
us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.