Variety‘s Strictly Business podcast hits the road this week to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show conference.
Hosts Cynthia Littleton and Andrew Wallenstein walk through CES’ C Space installation at Aria Las Vegas while discussing the seismic shifts under way for media and entertainment thanks to the onslaught of competition from digital streaming and on-demand viewing platforms.
Strictly Business also speaks with movers and shakers including Mark Cuban, Quibi partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, and UTA partner Brent Weinstein, who was an early adopter among Hollywood talent agents of the digital media realm as a business opportunity.
Listen to this week’s podcast below:
Pluto TV chief Tom Ryan weighs in about what he sees as the market for free ad-supported streaming options as a complement to the Big Three streamers of Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. Bleacher Report CEO Howard Mittman details the evolution of the sports brand and how easily it has integrated with its Turner Sports parent company.
Cuban drew an SRO crowd for his Jan. 8 keynote with Wallenstein at Variety‘s annual Entertainment Summit at CES. The investor, an early internet billionaire who is now the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and a featured star “shark” investor on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” told the CES audience he’s focused on the development of the AI economy and thinks many others should be too.
“If you don’t know AI, you’re the equivalent of somebody in 1999 saying ‘I’m sure this Internet thing will be OK but I don’t give a s—,’ ” Cuban said. “If you want to be relevant in business, you have to or you will be a dinosaur very quickly. .. There’s going to be AI haves and have-nots. If you’re a have not, you might as well rip out all the computers in your office and throw away your phones. That’s how impactful it’s going to be.”
Strictly Business” is Variety‘s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. A new episode debuts each Wednesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and SoundCloud.