0:00

I'm David Grosso and you're listening to follow

0:02

the profit. David

0:09

Grosso here with a very special guest,

0:12

someone who started his own streaming

0:14

platform based on Danger. His

0:16

name is Javid and he's the founder

0:19

of Danger TV. What's up here,

0:21

guys? How are you doing? Pleasure to be

0:23

here. Thanks very much for the invitation, looking

0:25

forward to the chat. So how

0:27

did you get here? How did you kind

0:30

of, you know, eke out in existence and entertainment,

0:32

which, as a reminder, isn't the easiest

0:34

industry on the planet. Well,

0:37

I started off for all intents and purposes,

0:40

at Universion, right. So

0:42

when Univision was coming out of bankruptcy,

0:46

they had a magazine called

0:48

Mass and so I became

0:50

the ad sales director pretty

0:53

young and we

0:55

did pretty well. But the chairman of the company

0:57

wanted to get into television. Oh

1:00

um. We bought a cable

1:02

company called Gotta from

1:05

Televisa. I was the largest production

1:07

company in Latin America and

1:09

uh, and he was like, look, run

1:11

it. And it was really it

1:14

was the best thing in the world in the sense

1:16

that there I

1:18

had nobody, no precedent, no whatever,

1:21

you know, to to work off. So

1:23

it's like make as many mistakes, just just

1:25

get it right. So we got that

1:27

going, and then we had Mexican Soccer

1:30

Um, which nobody had ever put on Monday through Friday.

1:32

So we put that on and every

1:35

cave, every cable operator within a week

1:37

was calling me saying we had to

1:39

cut a deal because everybody's

1:41

calling me. All these Latinos are calling me from Mexican Soccer,

1:44

right, And so that we bought. We

1:46

bought the company from telling million,

1:48

and we sold Univision to

1:51

the Venture Capitals in two thousand, two

1:53

thousand and eight. Contribution

1:55

to the enterprise value was a billion

1:58

and a quarter. So,

2:00

oh so it's good, right, And

2:02

then it took sonds. Yeah, it was

2:04

good. So it's like two thousand, two

2:06

thousand, two thousand one, our chairman,

2:09

my chairman asked um

2:12

if if I'd

2:14

be interested in starting the digital group? So

2:17

I did. Did you really sell like a well, you

2:19

know, kind of getting in the mix and everything else. So then

2:21

we put together a team. Everybody

2:24

back then Broadcast, everybody thought Broadcast

2:26

couldn't figure out digital, right,

2:29

because they're like, you don't get community, you don't

2:31

get the interactivity. So we're

2:33

like kind of like you

2:37

know, how hard could it be? You know, I mean it

2:39

just like it didn't seem too hard for very

2:41

well, so we got involved. We actually ended up

2:43

partnering with a O. L. And that when you

2:45

know, probably took us UM

2:49

a year to become number one in

2:51

the space. And so that became

2:53

a big success. And and when we sold

2:55

the company, that part of the company was worth about

2:58

a half a billion, so you

3:00

know, so I got to be So it gave me great experience

3:03

in kind of getting into businesses that

3:05

filled a lot of promise, but nobody really knew what the

3:07

business model was, right,

3:09

So when you kind of come into those sorts of situations

3:11

on a regular basis and you're kind of predisposed

3:14

to that sort of situation

3:17

scenario, you know,

3:20

like there is no game plan, Like you're

3:22

gonna have to iterate, right,

3:25

You're gonna have to pivot, You're gonna it's gonna be two steps

3:27

forward, one step back, and

3:29

the sooner that you kind of get a handle

3:31

on that, the sooner potential success

3:34

can eventually come. And

3:36

you know, and it's you know, the one

3:38

thing I always tell people that asked me about like entrepreneurship

3:41

and my stuff and media and everything else. Is

3:44

it. Look, it takes a steel stomach,

3:46

you know, it takes a steel stomach,

3:48

like it took me. We at at

3:51

Universion dot Com. We lost

3:53

something like seventy five million

3:56

dollars in the first three years

3:59

at people that the finance

4:02

guys called me Mr. Bracketts because you know, you always

4:04

put brackets around a loss, so

4:07

like lukos, here's Mr. Brackett's right, and

4:10

so like you have to like take it and swallowed.

4:12

But like, as long as I was getting fired, like I was like,

4:14

okay, like call me Mr. Bracketts. And then after

4:16

three years, one day they called me Mr.

4:18

Brackets and I was like, you can never call me that again.

4:20

They're like, what are you trying to tell me You're gonna break even? I said,

4:22

I'm not gonna break even. I'm gonna be profitable this year.

4:25

And then we had seen we kind of figured out

4:27

how banners worked and how we could price

4:29

them, and you know, bring in special

4:32

events like World Cup into um

4:35

into the whole thing, and so then that went through

4:37

the roof, and so that gave me the opportunity.

4:39

The company was sold in two thousand and eight. I stayed

4:41

on for a year wasn't for me with the

4:43

new guys, right, and so I

4:46

left and then I got involved

4:48

in UM QR codes, which are kind of popular

4:50

now because of COVID right when you scan. So

4:54

we did that, my brother and I UM,

4:57

and we sold a company, the q Our

5:00

Code Company, to a company called Augmented Technologies.

5:03

The important thing there was that we had,

5:05

or that at least for me, was that

5:07

I realized I just wasn't an Hispanic

5:10

guy, right, that I could

5:12

be, you know, a global

5:14

guy, you know, like there's no like if I've got

5:16

the right idea, you know, and

5:18

I think, you know, I knew I could. I knew

5:20

I could figure out things strategically,

5:24

and I thought to myself that given the time, I

5:26

could figure out the right

5:28

tactics. And I also had a ton

5:30

of people on knew at that point. So that

5:33

led to Danger TV and that was

5:35

after we sold the company, the QR Code Company.

5:38

Guys were the guys that I

5:40

was working with, which included my brother about who

5:42

advises the nfl UM

5:44

and our chief technology officer UM,

5:47

a guy called Scott Falconer. We were all

5:49

gay together, like you know, we got to do something

5:51

like does anybody have we like, let's keep the team

5:53

together, right, Let's keep the band together.

5:56

And so I said, yeah,

5:58

I got an idea. I said, you know how Netflix

6:00

just keep fund growing like wild and they're

6:02

like yeah, I said, well, at a certain

6:04

point, all those people that were watching Netflix

6:07

used to watch cable and

6:09

while they were watching cable, they

6:12

saw cable television with ads.

6:16

But now they're not getting ads

6:19

on Netflix because Netflix is spot

6:21

right subscription based the O D right.

6:24

So how is corporate America

6:29

making up for that loss of

6:31

impressions that it used to rely on?

6:34

And then they were like, well, so what's the you know,

6:36

what's the magic formula? And I was like, let's

6:38

give it to them free where

6:40

we give the video for free, and

6:43

they're like, how are we going to get the content? And

6:45

then my theory was and

6:47

by the way I'm making it seem like my my mind was all

6:50

of us together out of it, Scott Falcon myself,

6:53

We're like we started to go to

6:55

all the programming festivals and we told

6:57

everybody the world's

7:00

change. You're not going to get that license

7:02

fee from you know, sci Fi

7:04

channel from this from not because they're all gonna a

7:06

ton of these things are gonna go down because

7:09

everything is going streaming, right,

7:11

So what you want to do is reinvent your

7:13

model. Not expect license fees,

7:15

but rev share on ad sales. Right,

7:19

I'll give you you give me your content

7:22

for free, and

7:24

I'll give you the revenue that I make off

7:27

and now at least you get to buy the Apple. And

7:30

so that took, and

7:32

I'd say for two years

7:34

they doan't me to go to hell, you know, And that

7:36

took. That took a pretty thick skin.

7:39

But then um, but then

7:41

you know, like I've in media, like

7:43

the minute one guy does something, everybody

7:45

starts saying, you know, wait a minute, he

7:48

did it, maybe we should try it. And

7:50

then what you do is once

7:52

you once we had enough content to launch

7:54

a channel, then when you cut

7:57

a commission check right,

8:00

and you're saying like, oh, by the way, this

8:02

quarter, here's twenty dollars.

8:05

Right. These guys never expected anything right

8:08

there, like he's not gonna make it. This is just a test. I'm

8:10

like, oh, yeah, by the way, at the quarter. Then

8:13

like a year later, it's twenty five a month,

8:16

right, And so that starts to

8:18

get into the into the corporate Zeitgeist,

8:21

and then everybody starts to say, hey,

8:23

what about else, We'll give you content. We'll get the content.

8:25

We'll get the content. And so today we're probably

8:28

closing in on about of

8:31

content. Right, we're

8:33

making a couple of million dollars in AD

8:35

sales after splitting, after our

8:37

share split, UM

8:39

with the platforms people like Samsung

8:41

TV plus, Roku YouTube,

8:44

you know, etcetera and um.

8:47

In the business it's called FAT a fast

8:49

channel re advertising support

8:51

and television and UM

8:54

and it's booming, you know. So

8:56

so that's Latin. Now you just you heard the whole,

8:59

the whole horror story because you

9:01

know that that's went down. How

9:04

do you deal with being Mr Bracketts though it seems

9:06

like you've been Mr Bracketts a few times in your

9:08

life where you know, you

9:11

know, don't lend a lot of credence to what

9:13

you think is going to make money. That's

9:15

not true if you end up making money,

9:18

right, like I mean, Jeff Bezos, I think

9:20

they still have. I'm not sure if Amazon has made you

9:23

know, eb da right,

9:25

So if you walk

9:27

in, because the bottom line is I am a

9:29

good example because we ended up you know, I had

9:31

to make I had to raise an

9:34

early round, right in early stage round.

9:36

And when people look me up, they were like,

9:38

oh, oh, this guy took on

9:40

gall Vision. When he took it on, it

9:43

had twenty five it was worth twenty million

9:45

dollars and had five million subscribed

9:47

five million. We had five million subs

9:49

through the cable operator at Galla

9:51

Vision, and when we sold the company,

9:54

we had ninety millions. Right.

9:56

It went from It went from

9:59

um a business that we bought

10:01

for million that we sold for a billion.

10:04

Right. So then you say Gallo Vision,

10:06

I mean Univision dot Com. And then

10:08

it's the same thing. You're like, wait a minute, they dropped the hundred

10:10

million dollars on it, but we

10:13

made five million. Right,

10:15

that's a five increase on your investment.

10:18

Where do you get that? Right?

10:20

And so with that comes confidence and

10:22

the final thing is on the third

10:25

on this business, UM,

10:27

I put my own money in and it's been

10:30

for as thick as skin as you

10:32

need. Those prior successes

10:37

gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted,

10:40

including if I wanted to invest in it,

10:42

to have the resources to invest. Right,

10:44

So that's not really what's much more

10:46

important is that is it's not

10:49

you know, losing money, Mr Brackett's

10:51

whatever. What's really a lot more important

10:53

is what's your vision right,

10:57

and how are you going to pull it off right?

11:00

And how you're gonna pull it off, Like, don't just don't bs

11:02

me about how you're gonna pull it off.

11:05

Show me some examples, show me

11:07

where the trends are going. And they felt

11:09

so like, you know, right now we're speaking

11:13

with Sam some TV plus, with Huawei,

11:15

the Chinese mobile company, with

11:17

other companies all in Latin America

11:20

to bring Dang TV to Latin

11:22

America. So now people start saying

11:25

dang. You know how he had said

11:27

he wanted to go global and

11:30

he's going global because we're

11:32

going global in five years, will

11:34

be all over the world, right,

11:36

So you just have thought. So that's the difference. So like when

11:39

you say back to the original question about the calling Mr.

11:41

Practice, I don't give a day about being called Mr. Practice.

11:43

I felt that kind of where kind of like a badge of honor,

11:46

right because I could because I had the steel

11:48

stomach that was required

11:52

to get through it. And everybody goes through it.

11:54

Diesos went through it, Ted

11:56

Turner went through it. You know, that's

11:58

the deal. So can you

12:00

tell me the difference. Can you explain the modern

12:03

TV landscape to us? S v O D A v O

12:05

D T v O D. There's a lot of acronyms

12:07

in this industry. I'll just I'll just

12:09

for the sake of time, I'll just break it up into

12:11

two spot and avon. Right,

12:14

So um avon is what we

12:16

do, right, doesn't mean we won't go

12:18

spot we're talking into So that's advertising supported

12:21

v o D. That really

12:23

breaks up into two buckets. In advertising

12:25

supported d O D, you have a linear

12:28

channel, which is like day

12:30

part oriented one o'clock, two

12:32

o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, right,

12:35

you replace, you keep that basic

12:38

um programming guide up

12:41

for a week and then you and then you refresh

12:43

it with that's

12:46

that's called a linear loot. Then

12:50

you have your v o D, which is more like traditional

12:53

v O D video on demand where

12:55

you can so we the way that we look at it is

12:58

you sample on linear

13:01

and you binge onto v o D

13:04

like you see like in my case, you see

13:06

something. We have a show called Human Prayer,

13:09

right, which is animal attacks. Stuff is a wild so

13:11

you watch it. You just happen to one day go through

13:13

your stands on TV said you see it and

13:16

you're like, dang, you know, like that

13:18

is a rag pillow. Right, let me go to

13:20

v O D. I'm gonna watch all ten

13:23

Human Pray series and you

13:25

know, so you sample on

13:27

linear, you binge on on on

13:30

v O D. So that's kind of the way

13:33

um a VOT has has

13:36

um materialized today. So

13:39

the big difference is that

13:42

it costs a lot it's called cost

13:44

of acquisition to get

13:46

a subscriber, right, because

13:48

you have to market where it's

13:51

It's a lot easier to get a viewer

13:54

if you're confident with of your if you've

13:56

got a great brand name, if you've got good

13:58

content, your your

14:01

your airtime looks professional,

14:04

you've got great promos um,

14:06

that becomes a lot of you. So it's a lot easier

14:08

to get into a vod than it

14:11

is Spot. However,

14:14

the really big money is an spot.

14:17

Right. So like one example I bring

14:20

up to people is are you familiar with Curiosity

14:22

Stream? No, I'm not telling

14:24

me about its stream was founded

14:27

by the founder of Discovery

14:29

Guy called John Hendricks. Right,

14:32

they charged two dollars a month. Right,

14:36

they have eighteen million subscribers,

14:39

So you know, you hear two dollars a month, You're like, oh, yeah,

14:41

it's a nice little service, right until you

14:43

do the maths and then you're like two dollars

14:46

time at M he's making thirty six million dollars

14:49

a month, right, is

14:51

making a half a billion cash a

14:53

year right now?

14:56

For those eighteen million subs to

14:58

create half a billion in

15:00

advertising revenue, it's

15:03

it's virtually impossible. Right,

15:05

So the question is can you get to

15:07

the eighteen million at two dollars or

15:10

it might be twelve dollars for Netflix?

15:13

Right, And there's a variety of different costs

15:16

of acquisition models, and so then

15:18

you say they seem like they're totally separate.

15:20

But what I think is occurring

15:23

is that today this

15:26

whole thing about free television like Danger TV.

15:29

Right in second quarter, we

15:32

had twelve streamers, twelve that

15:35

cable channels and streamers that advertise on Danger

15:38

TV. Now, why did they

15:40

advertise on Danger TV? They

15:42

advertise on Danger TV because they knew we were

15:44

free, like a free channel to a viewer.

15:47

So what the person that's

15:49

watching free TV is more likely

15:52

to still not have made up his mind against

15:55

all his subscription decisions. Right,

15:59

So now all of a sudden, guys are advertising

16:02

on my air saying I can

16:04

find forget the impression, I

16:06

can find a new subscriber here.

16:08

So are you familiar with Pluto? Yeah,

16:11

of course, Okay, So Pluto's three it's

16:14

owned by Viacom, So

16:17

Viacom. You're like, okay, Viacom

16:20

has got Paramount Plus right

16:22

as their streamer. And then you

16:24

say, oh, so what they did was they

16:27

put all these shows behind a pay

16:29

wall of subscription, and then they

16:31

can still get the advertising on on

16:34

Pluto. At first glance, that's

16:37

right, until you realize, right

16:40

that, wait a minute, Paramount

16:43

I mean Viacom is now going to promote

16:46

Pluto, So that's only going

16:48

to get bigger. Pluto is only gonna get bigger. And

16:50

say you're like, they'll make that much more advertising,

16:53

and then you're like, right, but there's

16:55

even more to that, right,

16:57

And what's more to that is that

17:01

you have potential subscribers there.

17:04

So now Paramount Plus can

17:07

advertise on Pluto basically

17:10

for free, right, and

17:12

you've got millions of people that

17:15

if they're watching, Like I go back to Data

17:17

TV, we had twelve streamers

17:19

and cable channels advertising on our air

17:21

basically looking for subscribers. Right,

17:24

they have to pay me. But if I have a strategic

17:27

like Pluto's got with UM

17:30

with Viacom, it gives you this

17:33

depository for new potential subscribers.

17:36

And that's why we're part

17:38

of the of that ecosystem. But

17:40

of but the package

17:43

of getting an AVAT channel together with an SCAT

17:45

channel that reaches critical mass that has

17:47

got the same type of content is

17:50

um. You know, that's kind of like the holy

17:52

grail if you can make it all work. Tell

18:03

me about danger TV. Why danger UM?

18:08

I'd say I'd start off with that

18:11

when I when we started to look at the

18:14

whole Netflix example I gave you earlier. So

18:17

you think about people that are cord

18:19

cutting, right, So, like you

18:21

know they're watching Netflix and they say, screwed, I don't need cable

18:24

anymore. Right, We

18:27

through the through a variety of different ways,

18:29

realized that it was young men. We're

18:32

a huge You can imagine you're coming out of college

18:34

and you're like, oh, do you want to you want to pay a hundred

18:37

dollar cable bill and you're

18:39

like, screw a hundred dollar cablele pay ten bucks

18:41

for Netflix and I'm

18:43

done, right, And so

18:45

then we started to think, well, if there's all young men

18:47

are primarily young men that are doing

18:50

this, what would attract

18:52

young men, right,

18:55

because that's what we're looking for. And

18:57

so know,

19:00

I was like, I think

19:02

it's gonna be danger right now.

19:04

You still working on them, you

19:07

know, I love the company, still love the company.

19:10

But I was never a Novella fan, right

19:14

right you started there. They

19:17

are very similar and as Hispanics,

19:19

we had to watch them growing up, so we kind of become

19:21

allergic to them. Yeah, yeah,

19:23

I'm not saying like I'm not Look, there's there's a lot

19:25

of stuff. It's gotten much better in a lot of in a lot of

19:27

different ways, right, and so, but it

19:31

wasn't my like I was always kind of like, yeah,

19:34

I'm part of this. I've gotten rich off

19:36

it, right, But like

19:39

it's not like I loved it right

19:41

now you go, you said, well what

19:43

do you look? And I was like, well,

19:46

I like all that danger stuff, right, you

19:48

know, like you know, whether it be you

19:50

know, special forces training or

19:53

whether it be um, animal

19:55

attacks, disasters,

19:59

crime, like, I go, all that stuff

20:01

like that that's what keeps that's great,

20:04

right and so, and

20:06

so I would explain that

20:08

to my partners, and then my partners were

20:10

like, well, what should we call it? And I thought to myself,

20:13

I've got three kids that are I mean today

20:15

they're um, eighteen to twenty

20:18

two, but back then they were probably you

20:20

know, thirteen to seventeen, and the

20:22

one word that you always heard was authentic,

20:26

right, authentic. It's got to be authentic for this generation

20:28

millennolegency has gotta be authentic. So I

20:30

was like, call it what it is. It's danger.

20:33

So then there so I was like, I

20:35

want to call it Danger TV, right,

20:38

and all the guys are like, done right, because

20:40

we're all guys, right, We're like you instant.

20:43

It was like once we came up with the

20:45

name, we were like, oh my god, this is the easiest

20:48

elevator pitch of all time. Like what is

20:50

Danger TV about? Like, uh, I

20:53

think it's about danger, right, That

20:57

makes it a lot easier, right, Like uh yeah,

21:00

danger, you know, and so um

21:03

and so there was a U R

21:05

L farmer in China that had that had the trademark.

21:08

So the guy I was like, I'll give you a thousand

21:10

books on the trademark, and the guys like

21:13

ten thousand, and I said three thousand or

21:15

our Walk and Nobody's ever gonna ask you because

21:17

nobody's ever gonna find you and freaking China again and

21:19

the guys like deal. So that we got the trademark,

21:22

right, and so then now we had the trademark and

21:25

we had the idea, and then now

21:27

it was about going out to all the

21:30

to all the video festivals and

21:33

convincing um, all

21:35

these catalogs that um,

21:39

you know that we were worth a chance and that was

21:41

you know, that was hard, but um, but

21:44

we got done. So

21:46

what do you get? What type of shows can I watch on Danger

21:49

TV? Well, I mean you can

21:51

get on it right now if you're in front of a computer, just go to danger

21:53

tv dot com. But you let the war crime or give

21:55

a couple of ideas. I'll tell you what the monsters are. So

21:59

we you've got probably our

22:01

biggest show on YouTube is UK Border Force.

22:04

UK Border Force people are trying

22:06

to smuggle stuff into Heathrow Airport, right,

22:09

and then they get pulled aside. Now you're

22:12

like, okay, I get it. Like cocaine, Well

22:14

that's part of it. But then they're smuggling

22:17

like wildlife, you

22:19

know, and you'll see like a guy with like

22:21

armadillo's in a double bag. You know, you're

22:23

like, you gotta be kidding that you brought armadillo's

22:26

over from like Pakistan or whatever might have been, you

22:28

know. And then there was one guy that

22:30

tried to smuggle in his grandmother, right.

22:33

So yeah, so it was like totally brad at

22:36

to some degree. Some of these guys like

22:39

even though it's illegal and everything else,

22:41

and you know, you have to have rules and everything else,

22:44

you can't help, but

22:47

you know, you're kind of like all they want to do is get fine.

22:50

It's like everybody's got, like you see a humanity

22:52

in it, right, Like everybody

22:55

just wants to have a pretty good, you know, decent

22:57

life, like you know, you know,

23:00

three meals a day, a roof over there like

23:02

that. That's and they're coming here. They're coming to the West

23:04

to figure it out. And then at the end

23:06

of the day, the immigration officers like you're going back to Pakistan

23:09

and you're like, oh, man, what a bummer, even

23:12

though he should have been caught and he

23:14

was trying to sneak it in all that time. Stuff. So we've

23:16

got that type of stuff. Then we've

23:19

got um, the animal

23:21

attack stuff is Big right

23:23

and so and right now more

23:25

on the not it's not so much immigration,

23:27

but just like in terms of rescue, we

23:30

have Coast Guard series right

23:32

so, Coast Guard Alaska, Coast

23:35

Guard Northwest, Passage, Um,

23:38

Animal Attack, Human Prey, Human

23:41

Praise, a six show and a lot of them. We have Fairmont

23:43

shows that have appeared a couple

23:45

of years ago on Netflix, on Discovery.

23:48

So we're getting, you know, pretty high quality

23:51

of stuff right now. We've

23:53

got UM, We've

23:56

got a couple of survival shows where

23:58

guys go out, you know, into you know, like

24:00

the baddest place in the baddest the

24:03

bad assets place in Canada,

24:06

and you know you're left with like

24:08

your rifle and UM and

24:11

you gotta live for a month. And the guys you know

24:13

like hunting, you know, crazy

24:15

stuff. So it's like a little bit of it's a little

24:17

bit of everything. It really is a little bit of everything.

24:20

You know. The people that UM

24:23

are coming to us UM, you

24:25

know, I can kind of get a kick out of that. What usually see

24:28

is people come in for one

24:30

thing and then

24:33

they start to find the other stuff. Right,

24:35

So it was always part of the strategy was to cross pollinate

24:38

danger, so you start off

24:40

with you know, let's says let's say it's cocaine

24:43

smuggling. But then you've got um

24:46

special Forces trained. So we've got Special

24:48

Forces guys from all over the world, right,

24:51

and they're getting the crap beat out of them, becoming specially

24:53

you're like, oh my god, you know, like I

24:56

hope that God, I'd never pick a fight with a Special Forces

24:58

guy, right, because you're a dead man, you know.

25:01

Anok A matter of words from philand United

25:03

States, you know wherever. So

25:06

it's it's back

25:08

to the Univision analogy for

25:11

example. I mean for me,

25:15

it's just it's just a much It's

25:18

a more compelling

25:20

form of entertainment than UM

25:24

then almost anything, you know. I

25:26

mean, you know, maybe the NFL matches

25:28

it for me. And we're seeing that, we're

25:31

just seeing our growth um

25:33

just continue, especially post COVID. So

25:37

do you feel like do

25:39

you feel like live programming is going to be

25:42

a big deal with streaming? Absolutely?

25:46

So. I heard about the Running of the Bulls, you

25:49

know our Spanish heritage. Can you tell me about

25:51

that? Well, we've got we

25:53

want to do Running with the Bulls, right, and

25:56

so we've got a series on the air right

25:58

now called the Matador series, and it's

26:00

like following Mattadors in Spain and

26:03

you know, you see guys getting tossed by bulls

26:06

and you know, like just crazy

26:08

stuff. So we want to go live and

26:11

we think there's like a bunch of

26:14

live um spectacles

26:18

right that you know probably

26:20

isn't that far off from the Roman Colosseum

26:22

days, right, like like the running

26:24

of the bulls in Pamplona is out of control? Right

26:28

then you say, what about surfing Mavericks

26:30

when it's or Nazare when

26:32

it's cranking at a hundred feet right as

26:34

a surfer? Right, So

26:37

like that is badass, right, you

26:39

know, so we're like, yeah, we want to

26:41

do that. Then I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the

26:45

uh the Isle of man t T. The Isle

26:47

of man t T is a motorcycle race

26:49

around the Isle of man It's called the Islament. It's the time

26:52

fraile. You go one at a time and

26:54

the average speed is you know, anywhere

26:57

from a hy miles an

26:59

hour. Right. Usually

27:01

a guy dies every year, right, just

27:03

goes off the cliff. And you know, so

27:06

we're like nobody's covering this stuff,

27:08

and the thing about danger is

27:10

not only did we like the authenticity of

27:12

the word, but we felt that,

27:15

um, we refer to it as

27:17

a core emotion, right, and

27:20

we think core emotions can resonate

27:22

anywhere in the world, because every single

27:24

guy on the planet knows what dangerous because

27:27

you're the guy. You're supposed to be the one that protects.

27:29

You're the protector, and it's life

27:32

and death, right, and you're

27:34

like, dang, you know, here comes you know, here

27:36

comes an elephant charging at me, or whatever the heck

27:38

it is that we're coming, or it's a paramilitary,

27:40

or it's a paramilitary, it's a terrorist, you know, or

27:42

whatever it might be. And so we

27:45

like the idea that we think we're tapping

27:47

into an emotion that can resonate anywhere

27:49

in the world. And we think that's what's gonna

27:52

drive between the brand name just being a cool

27:54

brand name. That we think tapping

27:56

that core emotion is what's gonna drive us into

27:58

becoming a global brand. And I'm saying global,

28:00

I don't think it's gonna think three years will be all over the

28:03

world. So do you see

28:05

original programming in your future? Yeah?

28:07

Absolutely, what type of original

28:10

programming? Obviously, danger an

28:13

example. Right now we're doing um,

28:18

we're developing branded

28:20

content show. Right, so the next thing about the brand

28:22

content show is that the brand puts up their money. Right.

28:26

But the branded content shows title is

28:28

Survival Home and Gardens, right,

28:31

So Survival Homes and Gardens is doomsday

28:33

prepper. So it's like you see a bunch

28:35

of different places all over the United States where

28:37

guys are doing wild

28:40

doomsday prepping for all sorts of stuff,

28:42

whether it be tsunamis, whether it

28:44

be nuclear disaster, whether

28:46

it be you know, tornado, whether it be

28:49

wildfire, and like how does how

28:51

do you make it right? You get caught

28:53

in a wildfire in northern California's everything's

28:55

going down? You know, do you have a bunker?

28:57

What does that bunker require? You know what you

29:00

know? Weapons? Like how do you defend

29:02

yourself, you know, against the animals?

29:04

How do you defend yourself against wild animals? You

29:06

know? Like all that stuff, the materials

29:09

of your home. How much food do you have

29:11

to stock for? Right? Can

29:13

you grow it? Right? Like? What is medicinal

29:16

plant life that if you get you know, hurt,

29:19

So all that kind of stuff is what dudes, they

29:22

guys do and women You know and

29:24

families, you know, so we

29:26

want to have right now. They just had a CNN

29:30

UM special. Coincidentally, we didn't

29:32

know about it until it came out called Bunker

29:34

Boom Boom, and

29:36

Bunker Boom is just about you

29:39

know, the whole dudes. You can imagine COVID

29:42

wildfires, rising sea

29:44

levels, like there's

29:47

uh, I'm not gonna say it's a majority,

29:49

but there's a group of people that are

29:51

like that are expecting, you

29:54

know, disaster of biblical proportions,

29:56

you know, imminently, and they're preparing

29:59

for it. So we're like, you know, do

30:01

I think that's gonna occur? No, but

30:03

it doesn't matter. What I think is what they're doing. And

30:06

uh, and we're covering that. So we want

30:08

to cover that. We got you know, the stars and all

30:11

that type of stuff that built into it. Do

30:22

you see yourself as a competitor to mainstream

30:24

sports. We've seen the politicization of

30:27

sports recently and a lot of people tuning out, but

30:29

that same kind of desire to watch

30:31

competitions. Is that something that you're

30:34

kind of channeling that energy as what you mentioned

30:36

as a core emotion. I don't

30:38

know, I I hope

30:41

so UM I think that'd be

30:43

wonderful. I think I'll give

30:45

you an example

30:47

of something that I think doubled our

30:50

views. Right, And it was during

30:52

COVID, So COVID hits

30:55

and all of a sudden, sports are out, right.

30:58

So we went to a couple of the platforms

31:01

that were carrying us, like Samsung TV Plus, and

31:04

we said, you have an incredible

31:06

opportunity right now to

31:09

tap adrenaline,

31:14

to trap adrenaline people that are

31:16

looking for adrenaline and there and right. And

31:18

it's always been sports. It always been the NFL

31:20

with Paul, and we said, in

31:22

light of the fact that all that stuff is closed

31:24

off college football blah blah blah, let

31:28

us be that ADRENALINOK fixed right,

31:31

So and they're like, so, what do he want us to do? And

31:33

we said, we want you they

31:36

get the inventory these platforms

31:38

like Samsung TV Plus, but

31:41

if they're getting it from me, they're getting it from everybody,

31:44

right, And they've got like two inter channels. So we

31:46

said, so that means you've got remnants space

31:49

that you don't sell of the inventory that you get

31:51

from everybody, including me, right,

31:54

run our promo cross

31:56

channel, right,

31:59

and that way everybody's gonna start

32:01

to realize, dang, what's this danger TV

32:03

thing? Great, I can go on on Sunday

32:05

afternoons. I can get my wild Animal attack

32:08

fix or my you know, my Special

32:10

Forces training fix or whatever. And

32:13

it worked, you know, like you know, all

32:15

of a sudden, it was like boom, you know,

32:17

and the views started to come in and that

32:19

many more advertisers and

32:22

UM. And so it

32:24

doesn't it's not an exact answer to your question,

32:27

but I think I would say, I think we have

32:29

elements that are

32:33

UM. Lives that are sport

32:35

like, right, you

32:37

know, you know, competition, right,

32:39

except that the except that what you're what

32:42

you're competing for. You know, a lot of cases

32:44

in our case, there is your life,

32:47

right, you know, not you know,

32:50

it's not the you know, it's not the Super Bowl ring you know,

32:52

etcetera. And I'm a monster and nfel fan, right.

32:55

But like so that whole thing is

32:57

UM. I think people find and everything

33:00

that we're seeing is UM is fascinating,

33:03

you know, and and compelling and for advertisers.

33:06

UM. I think the idea of two.

33:09

I think there's two things that that advertisers

33:12

are realizing about fast channels like US

33:15

is You've got two things.

33:17

You've got value, right

33:19

because we're free. You can't get a better

33:22

value than that, right. And

33:24

you're getting adventure. You're getting value

33:26

and adventure. And you think, like every

33:29

SUV spot is

33:31

out in some mountains somewhere, you know, Geico

33:34

is telling you be prepared because

33:36

we'll cover you, you know, and

33:38

and it's and it's affordable, you

33:41

know. So we think we like the idea

33:43

of the space that we're in um

33:47

plane to value and adventure. So

33:51

what do you feel about the future of entertainment Because we

33:53

have these big conglomerates that

33:55

basically control the landscape, and

33:57

then we have people like you that are trying

34:00

to disrupt it. In some cases they're

34:02

playing nice with some of the conglomerates, but in

34:04

a lot of times, you know, there's a fixed by here.

34:07

Our population growth isn't that high anymore

34:09

in the developed world. So how

34:11

do you feel about the future of the legacy entertainment

34:14

conglomerates like the one you used to work for. I

34:17

think it totally depends on what the

34:20

commitment to creativity

34:22

is, right. So you

34:25

know, in the case of um

34:28

somebody like Televisa, their masters

34:32

at at Novella's right.

34:35

Now, last

34:37

year I think the biggest

34:41

show on Netflix was Money Heist,

34:44

right, Money highst was a

34:47

Spanish language out of Madrid

34:50

show. It's right,

34:52

so it was a Spanish

34:54

word, but it was it was money hist

34:57

and it's about these um,

35:00

these professional criminals that decide to

35:02

take the breaking

35:04

to the bank of Spain and then they end

35:07

up pulling it off, and it's it's crazy, right,

35:09

unbelievable. I loved it. Was

35:12

amazing though is for decades,

35:15

not years, decades people

35:18

would say you can't

35:21

use a Madrid accent

35:24

to reach Hispanics in

35:26

a broadway. You can't.

35:29

Why because it's colonial

35:31

Spain and we were We used

35:33

to work for that, right, so that whole

35:36

thing would be you needed back. Especially

35:38

when I started Univision, it was called or

35:40

before that s I Am went of Spanish International

35:42

Network, it was called um neutral

35:45

Spanish Broadcast neutral, like

35:48

no accent, right, if you're gonna air

35:50

to any accent, you'd probably air to a

35:52

Mexican one, because of

35:55

all us Spanish a Mexican. Right,

35:57

So so you

36:00

know, Netflix said, I don't give a day, right,

36:04

I don't care if that's the rule, right, we

36:06

think this is a great story. We think

36:08

it's a different story, and we

36:10

think it's going to resonate, and they made

36:13

it, you know, and then now they've got there's

36:15

another one that's kind of bilingual UM

36:19

that's called It's

36:22

about an orphanage in Um

36:24

in Mexico and they go out

36:27

and a fishing they need the orphanage they're gonna

36:29

close down, and then they go out

36:31

into the fishing torny and they win the

36:33

fishing torny with the kids as the fisher.

36:35

I mean, crazy, but it's like it's

36:38

so you need that level of

36:40

creativity, You need that

36:43

just complete And then so then you're like, so,

36:45

who's the guy in charge of that creativity?

36:48

Right? And if you've got a great creative head or

36:51

a great CEO or

36:53

some combination of that, I

36:56

think you'll be in good chap. Right.

36:58

If you don't have that, I think you

37:00

can have a lot of problems because I don't think you're gonna

37:02

be able to rely on life

37:05

as it used to be. I think it's I think

37:07

it is innovate, innovate,

37:10

innovate, innovate, creativity,

37:12

creativity, creativity, creativity. So

37:16

the predominant theory is that people are under forty

37:18

don't have an attention span, but long

37:20

form content is booming. So

37:22

how can you explain that to us, because

37:26

you know, young people can't

37:28

sit still for thirty seconds, but they'll binge watch

37:30

something for three hours. Yeah.

37:32

I can't really, I can't really explain to you except

37:34

that all I would say is that the stuff that that they're

37:36

binging on for three hours, whether whether

37:38

it be ted Lasso or whether

37:41

it be you know Alone

37:43

you know on Netflix, which is a wild survival

37:46

series, or whether it is UK border

37:48

Force on Danger TV, is that

37:51

they're compelling, you know, and

37:53

it's hard to get that level of compelling

37:57

nous in you know,

37:59

a you know, a four minute chapter on

38:02

on Snap right,

38:05

Like that's hard, right, Like you can get that doughe

38:07

and say dang, you know, like I flew out of the plane

38:09

or look at that shark attack or whatever, but

38:12

that whole story, the richness of

38:14

it for a great story, is very

38:16

difficult to capture. And I think that's what it is, is

38:18

that you just can't capture it on short

38:21

form and you can capture it on you know, on long

38:23

and by the way, with kids on Long, like

38:25

you're like Pat they're watching long form. I remember

38:28

we had this show UM,

38:30

which will remain nameless, and

38:33

I thought it. I thought it was horrible, right,

38:36

I just like this a piece of jump. And so then I

38:38

was talking to my son one day and I go, hey,

38:41

you if you watch any Danger TV late? He goes, yeah,

38:43

I saw the show, and

38:45

I go, really, I got to show the piece of jump,

38:48

right, like, how did you like? How

38:50

did you sit there and go and we don't even show

38:53

a weapon because it was all about weapons

38:55

until like fifteen minutes into the show,

38:59

and he goes, I fast forwarded, And

39:02

I was like, that's the difference.

39:05

Like for a kid, a long form show might

39:08

be five minutes of

39:10

fast forwarding to the action parts. Right,

39:13

So then all of a sudden they decide what

39:16

long form is and which fork form is. It might

39:18

be long form in how I described

39:20

my content, but to the kid, he might have seen

39:22

the entire show in five minutes. So

39:25

that's UM. And I've experienced that

39:27

firstand I fascinated, you

39:29

know. I was just like, oh my god, I never thought

39:31

about that. You know, we

39:34

do fast forward. I can attest to that. So

39:36

do you think, well, do you think

39:38

we'll see more fast TV channels and

39:41

niche specific platforms like here's like Danger

39:43

TV. You know, that's

39:45

a tough question because I don't think there's a ton of

39:47

court emotion elements, you know, and

39:49

I do think to become a significant

39:52

business that you do have to become a global

39:54

player with fast right. Um.

39:58

I think there's another thing is like if

40:00

you try to get into Sandsung TV plus now it's

40:02

tough, right, So you

40:04

can't be if everybody's not going with a

40:07

Roku example where you've got ten thousand

40:09

channels at Roku and you've got to

40:11

sit through it and hope that search

40:14

finds it. You know, blah blah blah. Um,

40:17

you've got two channels. You

40:20

know. We recently went to Visio

40:22

and Dizzio told us we're putting

40:25

a pause on adding new channels, and

40:27

we're like, you've got to have Danger

40:29

TV on there. You've gotta be kidding me, right, And they're

40:31

like, no, we're not kidding you. We're putting a pause. You know.

40:34

You know what I'm gonna This

40:37

is interesting, Haper, and this is an

40:39

interesting part of the conversation. In the past,

40:42

hardware specifically your television

40:44

never determined what channels you could

40:46

have access to, and not a lot of people think

40:48

about that. The television that you buy might

40:51

ultimately determine what you're watching,

40:54

There's no question, especially if you want

40:56

if you don't want to pay for cable and

40:58

you don't want to pay for neh like the television

41:01

that's gonna tell you where you're gonna watch, right,

41:04

and the number, you know, I mean it

41:06

could change, you could change tomorrow. I'm not at that O

41:08

E M. Original equipment manufacturer, right,

41:10

so it could go, you know, could

41:12

go they go to a thousand maybe, but I

41:14

haven't heard of anybody going to a thousand, you

41:16

know. And I don't hear the phone companies going to a

41:19

thousand. I hear there, you know, the number

41:21

that seems to be around two channels.

41:23

So if you can't get in there, like we've already had people

41:26

come to us and say,

41:29

can you take my channel

41:31

and integrated into Danger TV?

41:35

Right, so that we start to become a

41:37

platform, right,

41:40

And they're like, because we can't get in there, so

41:42

we'd rather get of the revenue

41:44

and split it with you, which actually ends up being

41:46

a quarter because you also have to split it with a platform.

41:49

Right, That makes nothing at all, right,

41:53

So I mean we look at that as a positive development

41:55

for us because we're in most of the places that we want to

41:57

be in there, even though we're not in all of them. And

42:00

by the way, everything that we're doing in the United States,

42:02

then you have to do it in Latin America, then you have to do it in Europe,

42:04

then you have to do it in China, Southeast

42:06

Asia, Africa are

42:09

a lot of the fast TV channels right now American

42:12

that are being consumed abroad. I

42:15

don't know. The thing about about

42:17

it goes back to core motion, right,

42:19

So I think that's the thing that everybody liked about

42:22

what we do right there, Like they get

42:24

that, you know, they get the core motion concept

42:27

and um, and they know that that's going to resonate

42:30

around the world. So you're

42:32

like, you know, and by the way, there's a lot of these

42:34

platforms that are that are emerging,

42:38

and you know, they're like your core motion.

42:40

You're like, we want you right, like we

42:42

want you right. So like

42:44

for us, I think it will be a

42:48

lot easier than for other people just because of what I'm

42:50

experience, just because I'm getting calls for people asking

42:52

me to take their channels on under my wing, and

42:56

you know in certain cases, I'm sure we're going

42:58

to consider in certain cases depending

43:00

on the quality of the content. Like for us, really there's

43:03

three parts to our formula. Right is

43:05

to always look for better content, right.

43:07

Second is to create wild

43:10

promos, like great

43:12

promos because Danger offers that, right,

43:15

because it's Danger, right. And then

43:17

the third thing is to

43:19

get launched on everything that we can make

43:21

money on. We can't make money on it,

43:23

we're not interesting, but it's just that

43:26

thing. Better content, better promo and promos,

43:28

more launches. So

43:30

these days it might sound ridiculous because

43:33

the whole world is seemingly tooled for

43:35

males, that there might be a market opportunity viewing

43:38

males as an underserved demographic. Is

43:40

that the way you saw Danger TV? Yeah?

43:45

I did, but it really wasn't so much about

43:48

males. Or let's just say it wasn't

43:50

just a being male, It was mail being

43:54

underserved, not only as male, but

43:56

as a v o D product. Right,

44:00

So one thing is to say, hey, I got you know, I got mails.

44:02

But if you're like but in a

44:04

world that's moving to v o D where you watch

44:07

whenever the hell you want, to watch and

44:09

you can want and you can binge on entire

44:11

series that I didn't see it, and

44:13

I was looking for it, right.

44:16

I was consciously that started with this show that I mentioned

44:18

earlier called Human Prey, because

44:20

when I was coming up with the idea, what I always do was I bounced

44:22

it. I test drive it with my kids. Right.

44:25

I was like, this is the typeest show. Can you imagine a show

44:27

like this? So we see this thing at Chimpanzee jumps

44:29

oute of like some safari you know, cage

44:32

or whatever, and uh and goes wild.

44:35

Right, And so we see it, and

44:38

my kids are like, dang,

44:40

that was so good, right, And

44:43

they were all saying that they don't watch cable anymore. They're

44:45

like, we don't watch it. That's like an old person thing. But that's

44:47

like for your age, you know, it's like and

44:49

so I was like, I was like, but

44:51

what about that? What about another show like the Chimp

44:53

There like, yeah, well for that show,

44:55

we'd kill for another show like the Chimp Show. And

44:58

so I'm like, okay, let me go back in. I go back

45:00

in and there's no v O D available

45:03

for that series. So then I thought,

45:06

dang, they like they'd

45:08

like to see more male stuff at least

45:10

as a pur taste, animal attack forever

45:13

or whatever that says about my kids, you

45:15

know. And then two V O

45:17

D right, So both were

45:19

underserved, and I think that's where

45:22

we saw the opportunity, not just the male thing, it

45:24

was a male thing needs bodta cool.

45:28

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us

45:30

today, Javier. Where do we find out more about you besides

45:33

Danger TV LinkedIn? So

45:43

change in the television landscape is

45:45

all about guaranteed at this point, and

45:47

people are hiding and relying

45:49

on formulas that work. But as our guests

45:52

showed us, none of those formulas that worked

45:54

in the past are going to work in the future. We're

45:56

watching as television is completely altered

45:59

by our consumption and habits, and it's

46:01

like every other industry right now, disruption

46:03

is the name of the game. We can't make

46:05

up what's gonna happen next, but we

46:08

can figure out that what we already

46:10

have doesn't work, and a lot of

46:12

the things that will grow in the future don't

46:14

exist yet. And that's why it's a really exciting

46:17

time. Startups and smaller

46:19

companies like Danger TV and like Bold

46:21

TV, and like a million other places

46:24

in the corner of every place in America

46:27

and beyond, are growing what will

46:29

be our media ecosystem in the future.

46:31

It's scary and it's exciting right because

46:34

stability and business is

46:36

something that is greatly appreciated. But

46:39

there is no stability anymore. Everything

46:41

is being disrupted and ripped apart and reinvented.

46:44

And my friends were living through that right now.

46:46

And television is just one example

46:49

of every business on earth right

46:51

now that's being disrupted and forced

46:53

to change before our very eyes. I'm

46:56

David Grosso for followed the Prophet. Thank you for joining

46:58

me today. If you enjoyed the podcast, give

47:00

us a five star review. Follow the Profit

47:03

is available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple

47:05

podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

47:08

And of course i'd like to thank my hard

47:10

working staff as always for every

47:12

episode. Until next time. I'm

47:14

David Grosso for Following the Profit part

47:20

of the Gingwich three network.