Rapid Response: From Taylor Swift to the Emmys, lessons in celebrity, with The Ankler’s Janice Min

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Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. How many stars can withstand a uh message from Trump on truth social, like saying I hate Taylor Swift, capital letters, exclamation points. No like very few stars can psychically handle that or would feel that their business could handle that.

I think the risks are being made clear, you know, whether you're a CEO or whether you're a star. That's Janice Minn, co-founder and CEO of The Anklor, the insider business media covering Hollywood and celebrity. Janice and I caught up the morning after the EMI Awards. To talk about what TV's biggest night revealed about the entertainment business. And we also talked about Taylor Swift's endorsement of Camilla Harris. And how the shifting pressure on celebrities to take political positions echoes the pressure on CEOs.

Along the way, we touched on Disney's evolving strategy, the decline in HBO's brand, and why stars like Patrick Mahomes and Caitlin Clark may be hesitant to follow in Taylor's political footsteps. Plus, Janice explores the vagaries of what makes something a hit. Whether that's a politician like Harris or an emmy winning darling like Netflix's baby reindeer. It's fun and revealing. So let's get to it.

I'm Bob Safien. And this is rapid response. I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Janice Minn of the Ankler. Janice, thanks for coming back to Rapid Response. Thanks for having me again.

We're recording on Monday. Last night were the Emmy's TV's Biggest awards. It was kind of An unusual night in a bunch of ways, not not the least because The last Emmy's we're just Eight months ago.

Like everyone remembers that. Right? Nobody remembers that, but it is Now remember, we were coming off the strikes, so they couldn't have the Emmy's last year. And so in this world of franchises and sequels and universes, we got a whole Emmy's universe this year of not one, but two ceremonies.

We had a different host than earlier this year, right? Instead of Anthony Anderson, we had the father and son team of uh Eugene Levy and and Dan Levy. The fact that you knew that it was Anthony Anderson, you alone in America. remembers that fact. Though I think your producer looked it up for you and gave it to you. There's no way you remembered that. Guilty. Guilty there. Not to give Anthony a hard time, but you know. They're they're not the most exciting um shows. They're more exciting to talk about than they are to to watch.

Well the Emmy's Are notoriously long and boring. And it's been this staple on broadcast television. And for your audience who isn't aware, it rotates on the broadcast network. So ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC every single year. This is not one of these shows that has a bidding war like the Oscars to get it on air to broadcast. And it's very important to the people who work in TV. And everyone knows Hollywood loves to award itself, but the show's long, it's bloated, it's boring, and as a reflection of these streaming times we live in. You have an audience watching television who who watching the show if they indeed tuned in. Uh, you know, and uh lots of over sixty five year olds tuning into their broadcast channel to watch it live to see a bunch of shows they probably haven't seen get awarded. And that's kind of the the story of television in twenty twenty-four. And I will remind you. I'm sure you remember this, the moment in 2023 when Bob Iger was at Sun Valley and made the comment television is not core to Disney's business. And there were the Emmy Awards on ABC last night owned.

By Disney. So there you go. Yes. Yes. Everyone still loves a red carpet, no matter what, and being on television. So there you go. Is there a way that you like evaluate the night? I mean Shogun made history with a slate of winds the bear got a lot of love. And then you have these sort of

Sleepers in hacks and And Baby Raindeer, which I will confess I have not seen either of Um like win a bunch win a bunch of awards. I I'm watching the wrong things. No, you're you are you are the representative of a the American viewer, right? Like I I mean, what's a mass show with if could they if they could award NFL broadcasts The that would be something that maybe a would

Please the crowd. And so uh What's the takeaway? So the take, I mean, I think from a business perspective, it's a little bit about the shifting tides of who's doing well on television right now. And no matter how sort of meaningless and empty, and they'll all tell you awards don't matter, blah, blah, blah, they all care about the awards. Um, and part of it is just the bragging rights and The narcissism of Hollywood, of course, but a bigger part of it is you want to prove That you are a home for the best creators in town. And if you can't attract the best people in town, then you aren't gonna have the most swings at bat.

So uh let's just talk about FX for a second. So FX, which made Showgun, Shogun was this enormous swing. It's was 10 years in development. By the way, no one would spend 10 minutes in development on a show today. So 10 years in development. largely Japanese language, unknown to Americans cast, and it was the dedication of the creative executive in charge of F X, John Lancraft, the bear, which did not Take home the price. But the big prize that it was in contention for of best comedy and you know, remind me how many times you laughed during the bear, like zero. And they made the unusual move of um submitting as a comedy and they lost to hacks.

And so there's some applause in town today, like uh, you can't trick our categories. You weren't a comedy and you know. But The thing that I think is important For Listeners to think about is that

You're not gonna see shows like this for several years now. And that's because the industry in the last two years has changed to the point where. There this so this idea of prestige television right now is like a dirty word. Like Ew, like we're not gonna make these big swings and spend all this money to make up your precious show. Like, no, we need either like crazy huge swings on known IP. Um, or we're gonna do cheap shows that cost that we can just churn out and still get eyeballs.

And when Richard Gadd uh Baby Rain Deer gets up there in one of his multiple. acceptance speeches and points up that Hollywood doesn't need to invest in existing IP to succeed. That that's what he's Poking or trying to spur change with? Yeah, this is not dissimilar to if you recall at the Oscars when

Cord Jefferson, the writer of American fiction. got up and made a speech and said, instead of doing I I'm gonna mangle this a little bit, but instead of doing, you know, one fifty million project, do 10,$5 million projects and Hollywood will be the better for it. Granted, he's saying this is the person whose project was financed by Amazon MGM. So Take that as you will. Um so uh I think there's something parallel to what Richard Gadd was communicating also. But it doesn't sound like you think this is really gonna

change any time soon. D do winning Emmy's like this really change the business? We're in too fearful of a time for it to change the business right now. And I will note, I will note that Baby Reindeer took Netflix by surprise. So that's a little bit like the audience telling them what worked, and they were not prepared. To do an Emmy's campaign for baby reindeer. This was not something they were gonna prioritize, and they pulled it together at the last minute once they saw the reception it received. Mm. It it is it is ironic though, right? That that like a a T V awards show about T V.

Is the worst TV of all the award shows. Like shouldn't the TV people know how to make better TV? Uh it's like this is like going to the dental supply convention in Las Vegas and they're doing their trade award show. Like to pretend it's for anyone who is not In the industry is would be a mistake. I mean it's it is literally meant to service The However many people can fit in the theater. Those people in the theater to make them feel good, to fluff the executives.

Are Emmy after parties like as the same as Oscar after parties? It is not the same thing. I think most notably this year there was an HBO after party. And so In in the days of of old, like let's remember when Richard Plopler was running HBO and they would be these splashy, unbelievably extravagant affairs. That was the hot ticket. People would be clamoring to get in and and every star would show up and HBO was, you know, inhaling Oscars faster than they could digest them. Um, and this year it was a very small affair. They refused access to a ton of journalists. And I'm sure you might have seen some people might have been following some of the headlines around HBO, around the MEs, in this crazy

twist of how T V works today. HBO is going to become basically big basic cable for charter subscribers. And so this very premium channel that people used to pay$15 a month for on their cable bill is becoming free to a wide swath of cable of the cable audience, which is I think a lot of people were horrified. It's a dilution of the HBO brand. But HBO it's its dilution began When Discovery and Werner Brothers merged and the big show came out. Who knows? And the thing with HBO, the big show they have coming out is The Penguin, which is a spin-off of like the DC

universe of superheroes which Makes a lot of people throw up, even though I think it's supposed to be good. But You know, that's a far cry from the white lotus or Sopranos. It's leveraging IP. Again, leveraging I'm leveraging IP.

But just so sorry, just to hammer that point home. In terms of MA nominations, HBO used to be the big daddy. Like they would get all the MA nominations. And this year, I think it ranked FX, Netflix, then you know HBO. maybe a distant third. Richard Plopler's HBO, they wanted to kill Netflix every single day. And if they killed them once a day, it wasn't enough. And so that sort of fierce competition ended and if you're following this game at all David Zaslov even went so far recently to start selling HBO programming and Warner Brothers programming back to Netflix, which felt like Like

the game had been won by Netflix in the end. Yeah. Which In point of fact, as we've talked about before, is true. They they they are correct. It's not perception, it's fact. Janice doesn't mince her words, which is both refreshing and necessary when it comes to the entertainment business. Personally, I'm dismayed if the age of prestige television as she calls it is coming to an end.

But maybe I'm just a snob. These projects have to be sustainable, and that means building a vibrant paying audience as in any other business. Next up, Janice and I go into new territory, courtesy of Taylor Swift. Stay with us. When you build substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious.

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Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

There can be two types of companies. Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more.

As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Before the break, the Anklers Janice Minn took us inside the lessons from this year's TV Emmy Awards. Now we talk about Taylor Swift.

Her foray into politics and the pressure to endorse a presidential candidate for celebrities and for business leaders. Let's jump back in. Gotta talk about Taylor Swift. And her endorsement of Camilla Harris, which are Set off a media frenzy and then Trump posts in all caps. I hate Taylor Swift.

Ca can you describe Taylor's first endorsement post and your reaction to it? Well, for starters to think that that was spontaneously done after the debate that she that she spontaneously wrote out that Instagram post is you know comical. And I also don't believe for a second that it wasn't coordinated with the Harris campaign, but whatever, maybe I'm wrong. Uh but she talked about uh That she watched the debate, her decision was made, she was distressed by the fake AI endorsement that had come out, where uh someone had created a her endorsing Donald Trump, and Donald Trump had posted it on Truth Social. And then, of course, her Ultimate trolling signature on the whole Instagram post was signed from a childless cat lady. She also didn't post it on X, notably.

I w I have to presume given the Elon Musk environment that has been created, and as your listeners know, Elon Musk has endorsed Trump. So if if you Thought. Kamala Harris won that debate. It made it very extra that night, I guess I would say. You've covered the celebrity world through a a bunch of election cycles. Mm-hmm. I mean I'm I'm thinking about how so many business leaders have pulled back. They seem to be like

Afraid of alienating the marketplace. It's definitely quieter. I think and uh we you know, we did an interview at the Anchor with Mike Murphy, the Republican political strategist, who is a never Trumper who has has talked about how Celebrities have gotten smarter. They've wisened up. And at the Democratic National Convention, this was also a theme. We had sent one of our reporters there. And It was about

Like you don't say stupid things. Like you're like, don't do if some of your listeners might remember when Obama was running for president and Scarlett Johansson was saying things like, Oh, he's my boyfriend. I mean, like No, you don't you don't don't say things like that. You know, Mike Murphy had said to us that politicians endlessly have had to listen to celebrities try to tell them how to do uh You know. nuclear arms deployment or their thoughts about

high level policy issues. And that kind of has I I feel like dissipated to some degree too. And if you recall when Hillary Clinton was running for president, it was like the Emmy's. It was a little bit tedious, like here are my famous friends, here's another, and another, and another, and another. And it just felt like And if you and and when she was then it didn't really it didn't really work. Right? I mean it didn't work. It's like Does Taylor Swift work?

Is it is it different because of who she is? Yes. I mean Taylor Swift is is one of a kind and I I I'm sure You know, that if you believe that reporting that young women Are becoming more left. And a lot of it around the abortion issue. I if you could just pour kerosene on a group of voters to get them

Yeah. That was it. And I think there's also this cynicism among younger people about politics. Like neither side can get anything done. I don't like them. I'm gonna sit this out. And just if you know, if you can get people to uh you know, fly to Amsterdam and save all their money to go see Taylor Swift in concert. Imagine how much easier it might be to get them to go vote or even register to vote is the first step. I mean the the other fuel that that I been looking at and noticing, I mean

The late night T V hosts. I mean Jimmy Cammel has been like brutal towards Trump, tot totally savaging him. Stephen Colbert's been like a little bit more subtle in his digs, although only kind of slightly so. And then and then Jimmy Fallon has tried to kind of steer clear of the whole thing. I is that like a reflection of Corporate ownership at ABC versus CBS versus NBC, or maybe a reaction to Fox's Gutfeld show, like

I I don't know. I suspect that somewhere that these conversations are happening all the time. There's a whatever the number is, is it forty million people who love Trump and are immovable, right? That you like why why would you leave off Uh. Well fifty, forty eight percent of the population, and and also knowing that these these viewers

Your kids are not watching late night television. They're not even watching the clips of late night television anymore. So who who's watching these shows? Like it's largely older white Americans. And I have to imagine that there's some advertisers Who over the past let's say eight years have said they don't want to be part of this political conversation. It's caustic. It's exhausting. I mean, I I have to even note, you know, with that so we're taping today, Monday, September sixteenth, yesterday, there was a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Like no one even texted me about it. You know, with the first one nine weeks before people Like I had a thousand text chains going. So I think there's a fatigue among the populace of

politics and talking about politics. And and I mean there's there's part of the reason Kamala Harris has caught on because she's new, she's fresh. But I think the exhaustion and also with Trump, it's been the same political joke for eight years. I mean it it doesn't the story really doesn't change, and you saw Kamala Harris able to exploit those things incredibly well. on the debate stage because She's been training for this for eight years. She knows all his tics. Like the crowd size joke is still going.

There's the impression that like Hollywood in the celebrity world is sort of More democratic. more anti Trump. Does the media underestimate celebrity support for for Republicans for Trump? Or or is it really like

That much of a one horse town. I think it's a one horse town with a very quiet hidden pony. People really do fear they will get blacklisted if or Bing overtly supportive of Donald Trump, that that contingent absolutely exists here. I mean Donald Trump comes to Los Angeles and has fundraisers. So it's uh I think that the powers that be in Hollywood, the most powerful people in Hollywood, uh, whether it's Dana Walden at Disney or Ted Sarandos uh at Netflix The Democrats are in power.

I guess I would say. And so you wouldn't you wouldn't I mean People can't get jobs or work in Hollywood right now for largely, unless you're at the very, very top. And um no one's gonna put that at risk. I think Holly was very sensitive about issues around racism. I mean, I think anyone in Hollywood looking at the stuff going on with, you know, the supposed dog and cat eating in Springfield, Ohio. It's it's like you, it would be very hard to sell your public support of a candidate. like that when you are overseeing an HR department that has investe ten years in this idea of, you know, safe workplaces and all of that. And so I I just I think there's just no incentive to come out and publicly support Trump. Obviously you see who we gets

as his supporters like Kid Rock, Scott Bayo, you know, Dana White, that he gets, you know, wrestlers and Certain musicians and certain sort of on the fringe people. And he's able to sort of build his own celebrity coalition out of that, John Voigt. But By and large, these are not people who are the bread and butter A list of Hollywood. Yeah. You also see

Celebrities who kind of refuse to say who they're supporting. I mean I'm thinking of the the hubbub around Patrick Mahomes, uh the Chiefs quarterback, you know, like his wife I guess maybe made some posts that people said sounded like she supported Trump and then he's declining and You know, people are saying, Oh, he doesn't want to cross his wife, and I'm just thinking, he does want to cross his sponsors at State Farm, right? I mean, is that isn't that really what it's about?

I mean NFL, right? Already Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey had become subjects of like crazy conspiracies and QAnon and all this nutty stuff in the last NFL season. So I'm very curious to see what if there's blowback or how it blows back on him. I mean NFL is very broad, very it's in all states. It doesn't care for you know it's blue or red and it's it's very red meat. And there's always been that strange conflation of NFL and patriotism that uh and you know until Really until Kamala Harris. took the stage. Like patriotism has been

Owned? By the Republicans, you know, factually or not factually, but they've made it their message. And Well and Kamala Harris is sort of uh with some skill managed to flip that message. Um and so we'll see how that plays out. Are you hearing anything about the corporate world demanding neutrality from spokespeople more than they used to? I'm thinking about too, like Caitlin Clark liked Taylor Swift.

endorsement, but then declined to say anything about her position. I just keep thinking, Is that all about You know, cor the corporate world or or are they really just Wanting to stay private. Both. I mean I think that The incentives to come out.

Of and state your political position are so small now. What do you gain? Are you so impassioned? You have to say something. Fine. That's fine. But I think the risks are being made clearer to both, you know, whether you're a CEO or whether you're a Uh star and uh I th I think there are very few people who are willing to take that risk these days. How many stars can withstand a uh message from Trump on truth social, like saying, I hate Taylor Swift, capital letters, exclamation points. No, like very few stars can psychically handle that or would feel that their business could handle that. And you know, being a star is is

Like being a elected official in your own right. Like you're trying to stay in office as long as possible and I'm I have to presume for a lot of them taking a political stance Uh uh. Doesn't help that. Mm so as

You know, the political coverage intensifies as we move closer to the election. We've asked ourselves on this show, like, how much do we lean into that obsession in our coverage, you know, versus kind of counterprogramming going the other way. And I'm curious if the if There's a like a playbook that works for media companies. Cause leaning in can help ratings, at least in some ways, but Then sometimes it's not a little bit more. You know, there are things you have to do hyperbolically to maximize that attention.

I I always feel like fish for the fish are people are obsessed with it. And I think that uh in the way that in twenty fifteen when Trump was running for president, politics became the new entertainment. I would say this summer Uh you know, when you have Mm you know, George Clooney and Brad Pitt's movie on Apple TV being taken out of theaters and sent direct to streaming, like the we have a new star system this summer and

To lean into it. And it just speaks to the point that you can't fabricate stardom in the way that it was maddening for some people to see Trump. Capture the imagination in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, that You're seeing that with Kamala Harris, too. You that's something you can't fabricate. And I think the problem that we were seeing with Biden is that he did not have star power. He didn't have star power in nineteen seventy six, and he did not have star power in

twenty twenty four. Mm. Well, we weren't sure that Kamala Harris had star power, you know, certainly Four years ago, but She does now. I mean, there's something she's done or they've done right. It's so crazy. I think some of it is like how do you meet the moment, right? So I'll use some

Hollywood analogy is here since I'm your Hollywood person today. So like I let's talk about like the actor Glenn Powell. Who was like a a sort of a a a solid working actor, you didn't know his name, and then suddenly he became the biggest thing in the world in his thirties. And that's that's very unusual. And so that's someone just hitting for some reason at a certain time. Well, this is the thing that makes people in LA also lose their minds, right? Like you, you you see these people become famous and you're like, but but why? What? How did that happen? I would say the same goes for television shows, for movies. Like why that and not this? And it's one of the last unexplainable things in a world that's trying to game the system with algorithms and recommendations and um to have An intangible left in the world is sort of fun and like sort of crazy making. Did you ever think

A politician from California from San Francisco, a woman, a woman of color. Capturing the nation's imagination and having a horse race in swing states. That to me is Again, sort of the f the thing that makes politics or Hollywood so engaging you just don't know. Where the star is going to come from.

You cannot make this up. I cannot wait to see how history looks back on twenty twenty four. Well Thank you so much for for doing this, Janice. Always great to chat. Talk to you soon.

Listening to Janice talk about the art of hitmaking, you can understand why some people get so frustrated, whether we're talking TV, movies, or presidential candidates. But however intangible it may be. You can't ignore what connects in a marketplace. So much is about timing and context, and we have to stay attuned to the cultural currents around us. Now will Taylor Swift shift the political landscape? I don't know. It would certainly be dramatic if she did.

But hey, she's already shifted the NFL, which may have a bigger fan base than any candidate. For any business person, and remember, Taylor is definitely a business person. You should act according to your own principles. We want to be proud of our choices, whether they ultimately carry the day or not. After all, that's what leadership is all about.

I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Assistant producer is Masha Makutonina.

Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Theme music by Ryan Holiday. My head of podcast is Letal Malad. For more, visit rapidresponsshow.com.

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