The Exchanges

Q Presumably you knew that there was all this content out there that maybe you could, you could capture. But, I mean, as you were doing the research and building a business plan, what did you find out about documentaries in general? Was there, was, how did you know there was a market for them?

A Yeah, there had been, um, a number of polls on television research, you know, consumer research, and so I knew there was an appetite for it. There were the great experiences that we were all seeing with Carl Sagan and what he was doing on Cosmos. PBS had wonderful success with Kenneth Clark's series on civilization. I think, you know, there's 25 to 40% Of humanity that's deeply curious. They really want to know, where do we come from? You know, how, how is our future going to be shaped by our past? Where are we in the universe, for example? So it's that audience, which had been largely neglected by what a lot of people had called lowest common denominator programming on the commercial networks.

AI assessment note: “there had been, um, a number of polls on television research”

Q Were you following the developments in the cable industry, or were you just kind of a passive consumer of that news? Like, like, Ted Turner founded CNN, I think, in 1980. You know, HBO had been founded already in the early seventies. Was it something you were paying attention to, or not really?

A No, I wasn't, you know, particularly studying, you know, the development of cable. There was a day, though, in 1975, I'd been at the University of Maryland for a little, you know, a few months, I think, and a headline above the fold was the Supreme Court decided that the FCC restrictions that prevented the creation of cable networks were Was not constitutional, and the Supreme Court held that anybody who wanted to start a cable network was a First Amendment speaker, and so that was this ruling, and for me, it connected again back when that question I asked that cable operator back when I was in college, and by that time, by the time the court hearing the ruling happened, you know, HBL was up, and it was just sweeping the country. The cable industry likes to call that era the The era of truck chasers. People would see a cable truck come through the community, and they would chase it to say, when can I get cable? But what they wanted was HBO. I mean, just the thought of having a different movie every night at eight o'clock that you could watch was revolutionary.

AI assessment note: “No, I wasn't, you know, particularly studying, you know, the development of cable.”

Q you to work with them, and it was, um, a theology professor, um, who worked at an American university who was looking for help to get a, um, a television series that he, he, he worked on to get it, like, Wider distribution. First of all, why, before we talk about the series, why would he have come to you when this was not your kind of, in your wheelhouse?

A Well, it was because initially he was trying to raise money to support his television efforts, his broadcast efforts, so it was a guy, a fellow named Ed Bauman, and what he was trying to do was to help Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to understand one another. So he created, um, a series called The Children of Abraham, and lo and behold, the ABC affiliate In Washington, agreed to provide him the studio space at no charge and support him. And so these telecast occurred on Sunday mornings. Very, very thoughtful. So he asked me if I could help them in fundraising. But then they said, could we get this more widely distributed in the country? And so then that's when I started researching in earnest would, you know, could this be on public television? And then by that time there was enough Cable channels that had started, by that time there was a cable news network, you know, there was a sports network, ESPN, that started in 79, and there were plans for music television, MTV. And so that's the development was, why isn't there a cable? At first I was thinking, why isn't there an educational channel where this could easily play on? And then there wasn't one. And then you start spiraling into this. There's not one. Why is there not one? How could you start one? And then that started the process.

AI assessment note: “initially he was trying to raise money to support his television efforts”

Q Um, you, you, and you're pitching, right? You're pitching people, and, and.

A Pitching people, and then the other, other, you know, the, the building blocks of this, we kind of covered several of them, but this other question about advertising, I kind of looked on PBS, who's sponsoring this? Cosmos. You know, and I remember making a call early on to General Motors, and they were kind enough to say, well, that's handled, you know, by our agency, and so I got in touch with the agency, that agency for General Motors, and so they said, this is an intriguing idea, but they said, John, to, for us to advertise in earnest, you know, you need distribution in at least fifteen million households, and it, You know, ask why. They said, well, that's the minimum number of households that Nielsen needs to actually issue a ratings report. So that was an initial threshold. So how long would I have to spend money at a million dollars a month, you know, before we could reach fifteen million homes? Because that would have been the first time we could actually have meaningful advertising revenue.

AI assessment note: “Pitching people, and then the other, other, you know, the, the building blocks”

Q All right, so you, um, start to really find your audience, and You were reaching, I think, already 30, potentially thirty million households by June of 88. That doesn't mean thirty million people are watching you, but, but really, I think the turning point, if I'm not mistaken, was sharks, when you started to talk about, or air things about sharks. Is that, is that fair to say?

A Yeah, it was in 80, that time frame, we were just doing some novel things, the live from Russia, certainly. And so, um, we had a, I remember we had a meeting at the Hay Adams Hotel, which was kind of fancy for us, and we had, you know, the whole executive staff and some, the programming staff, so it wasn't a big group. I would think there was probably around 20 in the room, and we were just, you know, we, we told her, bring your ideas. And so we were just going around the room. It was the classic, what if me? What if we did this? And this young programmer, Steve Cheskin, and he said, what if? He said, you know how independent TV stations have, like, Marilyn Monroe week, or John Wayne week, where the movie's five o'clock every day? And he says, well, they have theme weeks. He said, and he just blurred it out. He said, what if we had Shark Week? And it was, the idea was as simple as that. But as profound as that, you know, and, uh, we kind of all said, yeah, you know, they all kind of looked at me, and I said, I think it's a great idea, and, you know, before that meeting ended, we said, that's one idea we want to implement, and, uh, so that was the origin of Shark Week, and I think it is the longest running television series event in, in television history right now. It's the longest one that's being maintained.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it was in 80, that time frame... that was the origin of Shark Week”

Q All right, so you guys are together. You are working full-time on your consulting business, and this is probably a good business. Like, I imagine, was that, was your ambition to kind of grow this consulting business out and maybe make that your life's work?

A Yeah, it was. I mean, I had big plans for what that could become, so I started down that path, but I also had these local Washington, D.C. area groups that I was meeting with, and then one in particular got me off thinking about television, and I think if you ask any entrepreneur why they do something, it's typically because they become passionate about About an idea or something at some point in their life that they can't let go. Yeah. Turns into kind of a healthy obsession, as I like to call it. And I certainly started my focus on television. Television, it's, you know, television, of course, is important to all of us. But I think for me, you know, growing up, being able to connect to someone like a Walter Cronkite.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it was. I mean, I had big plans for what that could become”