#002: HBO Magic

The method that HBO uses to create Emmy Award winning shows and how you can apply this to have the best advertisements on the planet.  I can guarantee you Ridley Scott would agree. David Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners, the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and, storyteller. I'm Steven's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... well it's us! But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those! [PEAK PTT Ad] David Young: Stephen, my notes say HBO today. Are we going to watch something? Are we going to talk? Stephen Semple: That would be probably more interesting? Let's Put on, let's put on some of The Sopranos. David Young: I haven't watched the Sopranos in ages. Let's do it. Stephen Semple: Or a little bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm. David Young: Oh, there we go. Yeah. There's so many we could pick from, Stephen Semple: I mean, HBO is crazy. No one has won more Emmys than them. Like I was looking at it this year. This year, they're down, this year. They're a little disappointed. Because they've only got 107 Emmy nominations. Last year, 137. Like the next leader is like, 40. The number of Emmy nominations that they get year, in and year out is just crazy. But the thing everybody forgets about HBO though, is HBO also really dramatically changed the business of television. They were founded in 1972 and they really pioneered this idea of the modern pay-for-television. They were the first station to directly transmit and distribute to individual cable stations. So the first to make content and distribute it out to these cable stations. And it really became the blueprint for pay television that we use today. So they really changed the industry and they've gone from 1972 to today. Stephen Semple: Today they do $2 billion a year in revenue. They've become.. they've become a monster. But the thing I love about them is not just the changing of the business model, and we could do a whole thing talking about that, but a little bit about how HBO does things inside their four walls. And this is the lesson that. We can learn. And we see this... we see this portrayed in movies where there's the pitch, right? And then there's the focus group. And there's the committee that approves the show. And frankly, that's how most networks operate. David Young: A bunch of studio executives sitting around going, well, you know, I don't know [inaudible 00:02:47] second guessing their creative people. Stephen Semple: Exactly. Here's what HBO does. The producers and the directors have complete 100% autonomy. There's no focus groups. There's no committees. And you know, we should put a link in this to our other partner, Mick Torbay's video on the committee. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzYBlMZiIoA Mick Torbay - Committee Video David Young: Yeah, Stephen Semple: Absolutely, watch it. It's amazing... it's fabulous. But here's the thing. Here's what their belief is. Their belief is if we go out and we hire the best producers and we go out and we hire the best directors and we go out and hire the best writers, they're going to produce great stuff. So why are we having a committee or a focus group? In other words, people who don't produce, don't write and don't direct determine what's good content? David Young: Right? Right. Stephen Semple: And you end up with Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Sopranos doing that. You know, it's really interesting. We all do this whole thing of, "oh, you're the expert. I want to hire the expert" and then tell the expert what it is that they should or shouldn't do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I Apple 1984 Advertisement David Young: