John Skipper
Appearances
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
I think the feeling was, yeah, but we own the underlying intellectual property. A distributor won't win. A creative company will win.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
We'd been so used to being in a world where there was this clear separation between the people who were creative and the people who were distributors.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
So yeah, when you were faced with, do we want to miss earnings for a couple of years? Or do we want to take Netflix's money, impress Wall Street with our earnings growth? And it worked. And it worked and worked and worked until it didn't work. People love the narrative that Disney messed up, didn't understand it was coming. We knew there was a precipice, but it was not right in front of us.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
We, you know, we're like Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff. But if Wile E. Coyote can't see the end of the cliff... All he sees is desert in front of them. In our case, all we saw was lush jungle of money in front of us. And you don't see the cliff. You don't jump off before you have to, you know, drive me up to the cliff so I can jump off now.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
Bob actually believed in trying to be transparent to shareholders and to the street. I remember him saying, we have a responsibility to let people know that there is this thing we have to deal with.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
And there was enormous wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about, why are we buying this technology?
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
My point, Kevin agreed with me, it's what we recommended to Bob, was it's not about the math. It's about existential existence.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
I became president in 2012. It happens to be that my timing was spectacular relative to the performance of ESPN. This is John Skipper.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
It also happens that 2012 was the first year that there was a tiny decline in the number of pay television subscribers.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
Because at that point, I now am sitting at the staff meeting with Bob Iger and Alan Horn, the head of the studio, etc., etc., And they clearly had been thinking about it longer. They understood intellectually that there is some really significant thing coming, that there is danger.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
We would do these models where we would say, if we were to completely pivot, what would we have to charge and how many subscribers would we have to have? And it was a very scary thing to look at. And when you looked at it, you were like, hmm, that is not going to happen. It is not going to be possible that because at that point we still had 85 to 90 million subscribers.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
And remember, it's a beautiful system. It's probably the best model in the history of media. The distributors deal with customer service. They deal with credit cards. They deal with how to get the signal to people. You don't have to do any of that. All we got to do is create content. We sell it to somebody else. They deal with all the technological issues.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
They deal with the customer service issues. We just get paid.
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Disney Is a Tech Company?
It wasn't like Netflix came out of nowhere, but at the time, the people at the studio thought, oh, this is a great new revenue stream.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
Consequently, there came a moment we were either talking about moving Dan's show from the local radio to ESPN National or we're talking about moving it to a different day part. I was in the process of trying to bring in a new generation of talent. I wanted that generation of talent to be diverse.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
And there was a moment when I suggested to Dan that it might make a very good radio show for him and Beaumont to do the show together. And Dan said, I have a unique chemistry with Stugatz. I want to continue that. I didn't know John very well at all. That's John Wiener. Did not know him very well. And Dan sent him up to Bristol to meet with me. We met in my office. I liked him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
A great deal when I met him. He's a charming fellow. And also at that meeting, ultimately, I realized that I wanted to get Dan, keep Dan motivated. He had a right to choose his own co-host. So I agreed. And I did tell him, I'll agree, but you have to change your name because I don't think we want to do the Dan LeBattard show with testicles.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
And maybe since you're moving on to the national ESPN platform, you should think about, let's just get rid of that nickname. There was no budging on that either from either Stu Gotts or Senior Levitard. So I capitulated.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
Sometimes you have to capitulate to your most talented folks who have ideas about things they want to do, often because it's right and often because it's the practical thing to do for the greater good. And I don't think I'm going to characterize which one of those two it was.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
I'm John Skipper. I was once president of ESPN. When Colin Coward left ESPN for Fox, it left a hole in our radio schedule. And there was some discussion about what to put in there. Was there resistance? It was always resistance internally at ESPN to Dan. right when we originally installed him in Miami.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
There were a number of people who didn't think we should have studio facilities in Miami, and I did have to tell Todd Keller, the very capable head of ESPN Radio at one point, that we were going to lease the studio, and I expected him to do it quickly.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
Oral History of the Dan Le Batard Show: Episode 7
So wherever the resistance was, I didn't have to deal with it because there all were people who worked with me, and the influence I had was I got to say what went after Colin Coward's show, and we ended up putting Dan's show there.