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[0:00] Ken Davenport: Hey everybody, it's Ken Davenport here with the Producers Perspective Podcast, episode number 242.

[0:06] Ken Davenport: Today I'm gonna talk about something that you've been doing a lot of over the past year and a half: streaming.

[0:14] Ken Davenport: That's right. Netflix, Disney Plus, Apple Plus, all those streaming companies.

[0:19] Ken Davenport: I'm gonna talk about something that I believe they should all do right now.

[0:24] Ken Davenport: I know they didn't ask for this advice.

[0:26] Ken Davenport: I'm giving it to them anyway, right after this.

[0:29] Ken Davenport: I wanna be a producer with a hit show on Broadway.

[0:36] Ken Davenport: You're listening to the Producers Perspective Podcast with your host, Tony Award winner, Ken Davenport.

[0:44] Ken Davenport: Hey, Ken Davenport here.

[0:45] Ken Davenport: Today we're gonna talk about streaming.

[0:48] Ken Davenport: Uh, but first I'm gonna tell you a story.

[0:50] Ken Davenport: So in the early 2000s, I somehow talked my way into a meeting with one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

[0:58] Ken Davenport: It was my very first big studio meeting, and perfectly on brand, like you'd see in an episode of Entourage.

[1:08] Ken Davenport: Uh, the meeting started an hour late after its scheduled start time.

[1:12] Ken Davenport: That's right. I sat in that waiting room and waited and waited and waited, just imagining who the big celebrity was that this executive was on the phone with, uh, which was delaying our meeting.

[1:23] Ken Davenport: And it actually was a big celebrity. I think it was Angelina Jolie, if I remember right.

[1:28] Ken Davenport: Anyway, the meeting finally did happen.

[1:31] Ken Davenport: And we discussed all sorts of things, including the differences between the business models of theater and film, how Hollywood owned scripts instead of licensed them, how producers in Hollywood became hired guns after they proved themselves, right?

[1:44] Ken Davenport: Producers in Hollywood are often paid by big studios to produce movies for them, and they don't have to raise the money.

[1:52] Ken Davenport: Uh makes you wonder why us theater producers produce theater.

[1:56] Ken Davenport: Oh, right, because we love theater.

[1:59] Ken Davenport: Anyway, despite all that, we also discussed how a Broadway show could make more money than a hit movie or even a hit franchise.

[2:07] Ken Davenport: And yeah, I will say that again. A Broadway show can make more money than a hit movie or even a hit franchise.

[2:15] Ken Davenport: And this is on record.

[2:18] Ken Davenport: The president of Universal Pictures has stated publicly that Wicked will make more money for Universal than Jurassic Park, the franchise, or ET.

[2:30] Ken Davenport: And Disney has stated that the Lion King will make more money than Star Wars for them.

[2:37] Ken Davenport: That's right. I know you're like, that can't be true.

[2:40] Ken Davenport: Google it, it's true.

[2:42] Ken Davenport: So during this meeting, we were talking about all this, and I said to this executive, you know, you should have a theater department at your studio.

[2:42] Ken Davenport: You should have a team to mine your catalogs for the best adaptations.

[2:55] Ken Davenport: You should develop some yourself, market some to others.

[2:58] Ken Davenport: There's gold in the catalog that your studio represents.

[3:03] Ken Davenport: You just need a team to dig it out.

[3:06] Ken Davenport: And as I look back, I'm sure, I mean, this was in the early 2000s.

[3:10] Ken Davenport: I'm sure I was angling for a job.

[3:12] Ken Davenport: So none of my shows had even opened yet, right? I was still developing.

[3:16] Ken Davenport: And the studio exec said to me, you know what, that's really not what we do.

[3:20] Ken Davenport: It's still just like not, that's not what we're looking for.

[3:23] Ken Davenport: We're looking for these big, you know, tent pole features.

[3:27] Ken Davenport: And now, flash forward almost 20 years later, and that studio has a theater department, as does every other major Hollywood studio.

[3:40] Ken Davenport: I was just emailing with three of them today.

[3:43] Ken Davenport: Today, they all have people whose sole job is to focus on the theater ventures for that studio.

[3:51] Ken Davenport: Now, what does this have to do with streaming?

[3:54] Ken Davenport: Well, look, we're at the same moment in entertainment history that we were those 20 years ago.

[3:58] Ken Davenport: Except I'm not sitting down with the big old Hollywood studio this time.

[4:02] Ken Davenport: I'm talking to the new upstart streaming sites out there.

[4:07] Ken Davenport: Yep, Netflix, Apple, and if any of them, Amazon, Jeff Bezos, if you are listening, all of you streamers, you should have a theater department.

[4:18] Ken Davenport: Many of you streamers have already optioned some of Broadway's best content, Disney, Hamilton, right?

[4:24] Ken Davenport: Apple, Come From Away, Netflix, Diana, American Sun, and more.

[4:30] Ken Davenport: And you should have someone keeping an eye on what you should grab next.

[4:34] Ken Davenport: But you should also have a team mining all that original content you've been creating for dramatization.

[4:41] Ken Davenport: The streaming sites out there, if you've been watching them, and I know you have, they're in the midst of an original content war, right?

[4:48] Ken Davenport: They're, you know, HBO did such an amazing job with Sopranos back in the day, Entourage I mentioned already, like all of these and grabbing a whole bunch of subscribers.

[4:58] Ken Davenport: And they found that, you know, just showcasing old movies wasn't a way for these networks to thrive.

[5:04] Ken Davenport: So all the new streaming sites, they now know this, and they're all about original content, right?

[5:10] Ken Davenport: Trying to come up with original content and investing in it heavily, heavily.

[5:14] Ken Davenport: And now they have so much of it, right?

[5:17] Ken Davenport: This content war has produced so much original programming, and plenty of it is ripe for a stage adaptation.

[5:24] Ken Davenport: Heck, we saw on TikTok two unknown writers adapt Bridgerton as a musical, right?

[5:31] Ken Davenport: What if the studio had actually done that?

[5:33] Ken Davenport: And as we now know, like I've mentioned above, with Lion King being more popular and more profitable than Star Wars, Wicked being more profitable than ET, we know how much money there is out there in these adaptations.

[5:52] Ken Davenport: So you would think these streaming sites would say, well, shoot, if we really want to knock one out of the park, what we need to get is a Wicked.

[5:52] Ken Davenport: What we need to get is a Lion King.

[6:02] Ken Davenport: Let's like Disney look to our own treasure chest of original content and try to find a Broadway musical in one of those titles.

[6:13] Ken Davenport: So I know you didn't ask for this advice, streamers, but to get ahead of your competitors, start a theatrical division today.

[6:21] Ken Davenport: If you need some recommendations on who to run your theater team for you, let me know.

[6:26] Ken Davenport: I will send you some names.

[6:28] Ken Davenport: I'm not angling for a job this time, uh, but I'm happy to recommend some.

[6:32] Ken Davenport: But I do believe that looking in your own backyard is the best place to find new content.

[7:03] Ken Davenport: Uh do me a favor and share this episode with another theater maker or two in your life.

[7:08] Ken Davenport: My mission is to amplify the conversation about theater because if we get more people talking about it, we'll get more people making it, we'll get more people seeing it.

[7:18] Ken Davenport: It will be great for the industry as a whole.

[7:20] Ken Davenport: If you want more of my daily perspectives on theater and Broadway, check out my blog at theproducersperspective.com or check out my social media accounts at Ken Davenport Bway on Instagram and at Ken Davenport on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

[7:35] Ken Davenport: We'll see you for the next episode.