The State Of The Entertainment Business With Jeff Ross

Conan O'Brien needs a fan.

Wanna talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/callconent. Okay, let's get started. - Hey, it's our Thursday episode. Normally we talk to fans in this spot,

but today we're gonna try something a little different. I'm gonna talk to someone who I've known for 32 years and he's definitely not a fan. (laughing) I'm talking about Jeff Ross, executive producer,

Rick Stortner, he and I started out together on the old late night show back in the day. And Jeff, you're the guy that understands the business of Hollywood. I don't.

I'm kind of an outsider, an artist, a cruiser of a Michelangelo roaming the streets. Painting is great masterpieces, head in the clouds, but you get the business. What's going on in Hollywood these days?

I just wanna know, Jeff Ross, what's going on in Hollywood? How's the business? Am I being a sandbag? No, this is not a sandbag.

This is me questioning you. What's going on in the business? The business, Jeff. I hear that studios are-- - It's tough out there.

- It's tough out there. What's going on? I don't know what's happening. - Well, I only hear what's happening because our world is pretty good.

- Our world is good. - Are we thriving in the business? - Yes. - Okay, okay, no idea. - Yes.

- I have no idea what we're doing driving. But what a strange world when we started out together back in 1993, we met in April of 1993. I was 29 when I met you.

Now I'm older than that. And that made you've got 70 years older, and I have gotten even younger. But now we've got this podcast empire and I'm having a lot of fun.

It's all great, but if I had told you 32 years ago, we're not even gonna be working in television anymore.

We're gonna be basically doing a radio show

that goes over the computer. - It's crazy. It's crazy. - It's crazy. - So that's your analysis.

- Well, it is crazy. I mean, we have our HBO show. - Yeah, that's true. I didn't mean to discount HBO and we have a lot of fun with that. - Yes.

- Of good time, but again, it's a very different, I'm gonna say this, I don't think anyone's ever said this before. It's a very different landscape now. - It is. - That's a good word.

- Yeah, you talk about specifically late night or talking later. - Late night. You know, I think everyone's talking about late night. - That's how things take it over.

“- That's why that's by our now and it's taking over”

from for Colbert show, is that right? - Well, he, yeah, it's interesting. He bought the time. - Wait, what's that? What do you talk about?

- In other words, he went to see Alan, went to... - You went to CBS, he's buying the time, the time period. - Okay. - And he's producing his own show and selling the ads himself.

I believe that's how it's working. - I didn't know that. - That's fascinating. - Now we could just buy time on TV. - So I think eventually.

- Can I do it? - Essentially CBS is like in profit because they just sold the time to... - Wait a minute. So you're saying I could go back on NBC.

They'd probably let me go on it like three in the morning if I bought the time. - Is that? - What's that? - Gift that.

- Okay, four in the morning. - All right, maybe. I could give the farm report. - That's just, there's nobody there left. So if you can do it.

- You can get back on NBC if, you know, listen, this is where you come in because you understand the business, you understand one kind of money, our business has, can my production company can we buy the four o'clock time slot on NBC 4 AM

and create our own show and sell all that

“sweet advertising money that'd be coming in at 4 AM?”

- Yeah. - Is that a good business model? - Do you want me to get in the weeds on this? - Yes. - Okay, I don't think NBC controls 4 AM.

- Perfect, and we can just squat there. - Squat there. - It can be like, yeah, people that just, you know, - I could put it on. - Like the old hobo shows up in an apartment

and just says, I'm here now and they can't get them out. - Why don't I squat? - We did do that. - What? - We did do that. - We did do that.

- We kind of did do that for like 10 years at NBC. - All right, listen, that's terrible. - We did find for them. I'm just fascinated by this new world. I don't understand it, but now you can buy a time slot.

- Yeah. - It's like syndication. - It's essentially syndication. - Oh, I should go into syndication.

- It's just, it's just, basically, what are you doing?

- Okay, what about this? And I'm just spitballing ideas here, but this is a chance for people out there to hear our process. I think I'd be great in daytime.

I think housewives would love me. I think I could buy a daytime slot. We could have a syndicated show called, and guess what, it's called, "Done in!"

And it's got an exclamation point in like a happy face. - You don't remember.

“You don't remember that before we went to TBS,”

we took a meeting with these guys, a company that's called Deb Marm Mercury. - Right. - And they wanted to do a daytime show. - Oh, remember?

- Remember it was a real talk. It was like the middle of a car accident. - Rick Rosen's office, and we did take that meeting. We took a meeting, and they pitched me as a daytime host.

- Oh, that'd be awful. - I'd be so lovable and fun. - Oh, you said, "Live a group of fun." I said, "It would be awful." - Why would it be awful?

- Maybe not then.

- I don't know what time people listen to podcasts. The podcast is very well. - Your humor, your sense of humor is kind of silly, and edgy, and goofy. - I think Adam could look right.

- A lot of people listen to this podcast. - A lot of-- - Adam, why don't you jump in on this because you also have a good business perspective, and you are, you know, the podcast whisper,

just what I do translate to daytime. Should I have a daytime show? - I don't love it. - No. - Why don't you love it?

- For the reasons the son has said,

“I think, like, I just can't imagine that”

that demographic sitting around on their, you know, watching in their kitchen watching. - Okay. - Can I explain that demographic on him? - Say it.

- What's that demographic, that's bad? - Go ahead. Here's what I will say. - Oh, as you've aged, your audience has stayed very young.

You have a very young mobile digital first audience.

I think that the podcast, it makes a ton of sense that you're a successful podcast or that you have a big YouTube channel. - Can I say this? And I say this to Adam, I say this to Adam with all respect.

- Fuck you. (laughing) You know what I'm just talking about? - Fuck you. - I'm on a roll here.

- Fuck you, right. - You, how dare you tell me I've aged, first of all, haven't aged at all. Second of all, this makes me wanna shut down the podcast immediately and the HBO travel show immediately.

And because I am very reactive, I'm launching a daytime talk show. It's called Conan and it's two a's. C-O-N-A-A-N exclamation point. - Well, that saves it.

- And it's mostly just to spite me. - Yes, okay. - And most of what I do is to spite someone around me. I've done so much to spite Jeff. I've done so much to spite Sona.

- Yeah. - And so much of my career now is about spitting you. - But what's, we own it, it's syndicated. And yes, it will do terribly, but we get to own how terribly it does.

- What do you think? - I actually like the idea. It's interesting. - You know what I'm saying? - No, not the idea, you know, not the idea of you in daytime.

I still don't like that idea. I like the Spiron Allen idea, though, that linear is now just kind of like up for sale. Like it's real estate. And it's going by real estate on linear television.

- I think that's interesting. - There might be opportunities there. - And one of the things about that. - Ellen, her daytime show did something very popular, which she would come out and she would dance.

People know that I'm very physical and stuff like that. Here's my thing, I come out and dance and I don't stop. I dance for the entire hour and people come out and pitch their projects in the background and you barely hear them.

And I'm rocking out the whole time. And I could get into the kind of shape where I do that for a whole hour of just dance. - And tell me how swipes don't want to see that. Is that a drug swipes don't want to see that?

- Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. - I don't want to use a drug, I don't want to use the drug. - I think that's the demo, I don't want to use it. - Is that offensive to the real housewives? - No, I'm not like pretty fast, I don't know.

- Okay, I don't know, it's just I'm spikballing here. Make it good. I was just saying MTV's the grind was very popular. You could bring back MTV's. - Oh, MTV is so gone, though, isn't it?

- What is MTV's? - I think MTV is going to, I don't know what the paramount thing we'll see what happens. - Well, those VJs do. (laughing)

- They're not around anymore. - Don't tell me Kurt Loder isn't still on TV. - Oh, yes. - I love you. - I love you.

- I love you. - And the rest of Nirvana. I mean, come on, you can't fool me. What am I, Rip Van Winkle? I fell asleep for 30 years?

I need to know what's going on in Dubb business. What do you count to me to do? You're my console-yery, you're my,

“Tom, I think you should keep doing what you're doing.”

Because it's going really well. - Okay. - So keep going with the podcast. - Yes, oh yeah. (laughing)

And daytime show, should we let that go? It's Conan with two ways, and I'll go up to three days.

- Here's what I have to say.

Do you want to really want to do a daily show again? - Never. - Okay, then forget it. Who's that I do? - You know what if you said he did, what are you going to say?

- We're going to say something if you wanted to do a daily show. - No, I learned. - You can hear just in the last 10 minutes. This is like the suck up room. - This is what goes on in here.

Everybody sucks up the room. - I'm not Edward. - Oh no, no, no, no. - No, no, no, no. - Not Edward. - You'd be great on it.

You'd be great on it. - I don't want it to do it. - You told not Dubb, he said he'd be great at it. - No, no, no, I don't. - Did you?

- I hate you. - You gotta give Edward his props. Edwardo despises me and has made it very clear from day one. - Just because occasionally I spilled water into the electrical outlets. - You called me the Sonic stalling.

- Yeah, Sonic stalling. - Yeah, you did. - Yeah, you were with an iron fist. You've killed so many of your own people. - I'm just saying that he doesn't,

no, I get a lot of pushback in this room. - Okay. - But I don't know what the next move is. - We've got, well, there is, well,

you don't need an X move first of all.

You can do whatever you want. And I think that's frightening.

“- And I think that we've talked about various things”

and things you might want to be interested in doing,

- You know what, no one's ever approached me about a clothing line, which I find show. - Oh, no, that's not true, Gavin. - No, Gavin Pallone, Gavin Pallone is my manager. If we don't even know what Gavin's story is.

- We don't know where he'd ever have. He told me he was a manager years ago. And I've known him a longer than I've known you. - That's right. - I've known Gavin forever.

And she'll come up with these ideas but they're not grounded in anything. He didn't come to me with a proposal. He just said, "You gotta sell clothes."

“And I think for a while, oh, it's one good idea.”

- Hair gel. - No, hair pomade. - A pomade. - Right, right. - And I think when you're shaking your head, no?

- I think it's a great idea. I just don't know that it was his idea. - Oh. - Whose idea do you think it was? You can say.

- I think Liza and I both came up with it on the same day. - Okay.

- Well, first of all, but then Gavin wouldn't let it go.

- Oh, that might be true. - Okay. I was pushing coffee, he was a coffee brand. - Oh, and you know what I mean? - He was pushing coffee brand was people think

you're so hopped up on coffee. It was they would buy the kind of coffee you're on. That was his pitch. Like you should sell ridlin' pills because people think fear and out of control child.

- There was also, um, not the Keela but some kind of, you wanted to, you wanted to. - That was a whiskey. - A whiskey, right? - Right.

- Yeah, Irish whiskey. - And Irish whiskey, right. - And no self-respecting, Irish-- - You don't drink what I'm drinking. (upbeat music)

- No clothing company has come to me. - Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay. We'll don't say everything. - Well, it's been pitched to you.

“- No, but I think people probably look at the way I dress”

and think I want to look like him. He's like Don Draper on Madness. - No, I want to. - Okay. - How you doing there?

- I think that if someone has really long legs they'll be like, what jeans does Conan wear? - Yeah, just for the sizing. - Just for the sizing, for your proportion. - Okay, what about that?

I have very, my proportions are extremely long legs. - Yeah. - Clothing that's tailored for the man who's had some sort of genetic malfunction. It has really long legs.

- You know? - Big and tall, but just tall. - Yeah, just, just tall in the leg. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Colour Brian's tall in the leg stores.

- Okay. - And it's just for people who are really long in the leg. - Yeah. - You know, in the early days. (laughing)

'Cause shrimp's getting really quiet. - Speaking of your legs in the early days of the internet and of YouTube, for a long time and we could probably, somebody could probably look it up. The biggest clip on YouTube was you and Spanx.

- Oh! - Check it, check it, check it, check it. - Yeah. - I wish I wasn't Spanx then. - No, it was checking.

- It was checking. - I wore jiggings and that was a huge-- - It was a thing.

It was like a five second clip in a week.

- Maybe.

“- You should do something that is way outside”

of what you would normally do. - Like something charitable and kind. - No, I'm saying like a makeup line. You know how like Rihanna came up with a makeup line that's more important.

- Those things are huge. - Different complexions. Like you, if you did, if you went up against Rihanna, you know what? - Rihanna, Rihanna would shit her pants.

If she knew I was coming after her. If Rihanna knew that Colour Brian was coming out for the pale man in your life. You know, and it's like it covers up an eye vein and all this stuff that I'm pitching is like,

look, we all have a prominent eye vein that shows up on camera when we're doing a podcast. It's also a really solid question. - This is a problem. - Well, this, apply this and it,

it's something, and you're freckles and you have like a lot of freckles. - If you have super thin lips and beady creepy eyes, Jeff, I think we found it. - Yeah, I think so, I think I think,

I think your pitch is perfect. - Jeff, what is the pitch perfect? - Let's be serious, back to serious for second. We don't know, I have a question for you that you can answer, you know.

All I know is that so many people I know aren't working, so many of the writers we know, it's very hard to get work out. Yet I go home and all I see are thousands of new streaming shows.

There's never been more product available to people,

but my sense is that a lot of people aren't working, what's happening. - I think a lot of them are made overseas, a lot of them. I'm not saying it's the entire issue, but I think a lot of them are made overseas.

- But what about, so that means that writers don't write them, US writers don't write, of course, writers write them, but US writers don't write them. - Wow. - American writing.

- Yeah, it's crazy, 'cause that is the puzzling part is I go home and lies in the air of just flipping through, I mean, every time you turn on one of these streamers, they've got seven or more show shows, yeah, you need subtitles, but there's so much product,

and then you wonder, well, see, that's good. - I don't think it's the whole problem. I think things got really expensive and that are control and in this country, in this town of all places.

- We had a moment on the Oscars that was really

where I'm backstage and I just had this image flash.

“Sometimes things just come to me as an image”

and one image was when I'm coming back when they're bumping in from commercial to come back to me, I'll be backstage and I'll be, I'm rolling on the floor with-- - No, I'm rolling on the floor with--

- No, I'm rolling on the floor with nine golden retrievers and the bands playing and then you hear ladies and gentlemen, once again, your host Conan O'Brien and I leap up and a team of a whole bunch of people with giant, you know, Lynn brushes.

- Roll me really quickly and I step out on stage and go, hi everybody, you know, cinematography and it was just this quick, silly visual that I loved and it's really interesting. One of the producers said, okay, this is gonna be

incredibly expensive and I said, really? Just getting a couple of golden retrievers and she said, well, the rule is each dog has to be acclimated with the other dogs so they all have to live together for like two weeks before they can come on

before they can be on camera together and if they're living together, all their people, their handlers have to live with them too. - Oh, yeah. - And she was going through all the things

“and how the cost got up to, I think it was gonna cost”

as much as like, you know, baseline sticker price for like a Porsche. - It was like $30,000. - I think it was more than that, maybe. - I think it was more than $30, but it was not a Porsche,

but it really good high end. - And then I think someone said, somebody said, then somebody said, what about puppies and they went more expensive. - Yeah, puppies are more expensive.

We, and basically, it's all this stuff

that gets built in over time, these different rules. And I realized in that moment, you know, we used to do things in the '90s. We used to get away with murder because we would think of an idea at 430,

a really weird idea and we would throw it out on the air and then a lot of time goes by and I think rules change and things. I also think in the Oscars, especially when people hear Oscars, the price goes up.

- Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. - Yeah. - And, but I was in that moment with the Golden Retriever

“as I thought, oh, this is a concrete example”

of something that's happening that's making me think, I see why people go to Budapest. - Right, right. - Right, yeah. - Because I see why,

because, and I've heard that a lot of, I mean, we used for years, for over a decade, for 11 years, we were on Warner Bros. that, and it was, you know, humming that things are quieter in some of these lots than these things.

- When we left, they were building new stages. I believe. - Yeah. - And everything was packed, and I hear now that's like half empty. - I don't know, I don't know that.

Can I say one thing? - I don't know that it's true. - I will say that happens when ever Conan O'Brien leaves a place, make sense. - NBC? - NBC?

- Pretty much collapsed after I left. (laughing) - You know, but that's called the owners. - When I leave a party. - In a way, it did.

- Good luck to that party. (laughing) But yeah, it's fascinating to me. I mean, we're joking around, but at the same time, I do accidentally have real questions.

Which is, I, you know, we've now been, I got started in 1985. That's ancient history now, very different. - And you know what's funny? I was surfing the internet the other day,

and something came up, I don't know if it was on Instagram, or maybe it was on Instagram, where they know kind of what you're interested in, and they showed me a footage of a video store like a blockbuster and it was from 1986 or something.

When I was first out here with Greg Daniels,

and someone had taken a video with like a video camera of all the displays. And now it looks like the footage I used to look at when I was a kid from the 1920s, and I realized, you know what I mean?

Where people are writing around with ring straw hats in funny, I remember. - Looking at a blockbuster now looks like, oh, that's a speak easy. During 40 years, this 40 years ago,

and I know that young people now see that footage and think everyone looks crazy. We all look like we're in a flock of sea goals. With padded shoulders, and we're going, oh, it's my, I have to rent a video,

so I can watch back to the future again. You know, I'm going to go home and put this into a giant 600 pound machine and watch back to the future. - Yeah.

- And then rewind it. - Yeah. - And then behind rewind. - Yeah. - Remember where we were in Finland,

and somebody came up to us, we were at a party, and somebody came up to us with a phone, was it, hey, look at your shows on. - Oh, some of those shows are show on a phone. - And this was like, how many years ago?

- Oh, I mean, this would be 25 years ago, or something, 20 years ago? - And they went, I'm looking at, I'm really like, well, I felt back, because I said, which, and I threw a hot oil on them, and then she was a witch.

But nothing to do with her having the phone.

- But, that's good.

“- No, I remember we were at some event for NBC,”

and they said, we were in Washington, DC,

and it was some event broadcasting event, and this is in the 90s, and they said, we're going to show you something called HDTV, high definition TV, and they had it on a flat screen TV, and we walked up to it, and it was a football game.

And I was watching it, and it was the, I mean, I don't think HDTV was commercially available at the time. They were just showing us a sample of this thing. It was going to be coming very soon. I remember being able to see the divots in the ground,

and it blew me away. And now you watch TV, TV's that are probably 100 times, more precise than that one. - And we're just like, dove, we get so, inured to this technique, and I remember how expensive they were

when they came out, and now they're like, it's like a commodity. - Oh, you used to get a, it was class screen TV, and people were like, oh, you're getting a flat screen? - Yeah, I went to the bank, and I got a co-signer,

and I talked to my account, and I was being installed tomorrow by a team of scientists. - I mean, that was just being told,

it's criminal over here, I can speak to it, too.

- You know, you know, the games are on, you just have your phone, and just watching games live, you know, that's your Jeff, I mean, I've seen you many times sitting alone at a restaurant. - No, these guys, too.

- This guy does it while he's engineering the show? - Oh, okay. - Yeah, remember? - Oh, that's right. Eduardo, you like to watch your, well, you call it football.

- That's right. - That's right. - But it's a, I'm watching one right now. - No, I'm just kidding. - That would be cool.

- No, it's, it's a whole, it's all listen. - I was just, I mean, it's all listen, right now. - Oh, well, could we crack it, things have changed. - Yeah, but it's just stunning. You can't ever fire us.

- What's on?

“- We have, you have to work for until you're like 90.”

- 'Cause otherwise we're all fucked. - So you should do. - You can get a job that's just ridiculous anywhere else. - What are you talking to? No, we're really up to work till you're 90.

Thank you. We'll put it in writing, just until you're 90. Thank you. - Then I'll be 96. Do you think, Jeff, that you have adapted to the new ways?

- I don't know. - Then what sense do you mean? - Do you know how to work your phone, do you know how to... - Is that the baseline standard? Do you know how to work your phone?

- I'm saying 'cause David knows full well that I don't know these things.

- Jeff, I've never had to call me to help him

log into a streaming server. - No, you know. - Well, I have had to call you for a few things. Every now and then. - Yeah, not little.

- Yeah, dig a hole. (laughing) - By the way, very different. - By the way, I'm going to make your decision. (laughing)

You better put my house on the market. - Like? (laughing) - Started yelling, I had to do something. - Oh, good!

- Oh, come on, he gets so dark, so fast. - Oh, let's see. - Let's see. - No, no. - I bring you in here and then I expose you

as a highway killer. - Yeah. - Oh, you know. - He's called the highway mumbleer. (laughing)

- People are disappearing on the four or five freeway and they only find us a shoe and they hear some mumbley. - Kill to his charge. - Listen, so you say they'll stay

on the podcast is good, which is good. - Yeah, he's going. - Oh, yes. - Oh, it's all good, I shouldn't panic. - All right, well listen, but--

- He's feel loves you, they want more of whatever you want to give them. - Oh, hey. - Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. - Well, I'm going to give them a daytime show.

- Oh, go ahead! - Woo! - So watch Conan dance for an hour. - Oh, my God. - As guests, far behind him, yell, to try to be heard.

(laughing) - Do you imagine just me in the foreground dancing and you're in the background going, the book's called, a time for summer. (laughing)

- They get frustrated and walk away. - Yeah, we agree. - Lots of three whole days. - Yeah. - All right, Jeff, thanks for coming in, I thank you. - Thank you.

- I'd like to lead to a very damaged ecosystem and just for the record, it word of despises me. - Thank you. - And I get a lot of hate from this room, so I think it's very good.

“- Yeah, I mean, that's our job, that's what we do.”

- Oh, I'd be to join in, very happy. - Conan O'Brien needs a fan, with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Session, and Matt Gorley, produced by me, Matt Gorley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and Nick Leah, incidental music

by Jimi Vivina, take it away, Jimi. - Supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Burm, engineering by Eduardo Perez,

get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conin. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a fan wherever you find podcasts or down.