Did Hollywood Ever Have a Chance Against YouTube?

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Tom Freston, former CEO of Viacom and MTV Networks, to discuss why legacy companies missed the boat with YouTube in the early aughts, the similarities YouTube from the aughts shares with the AI boom of today, why MTV died, and whether it can be revived (02:13). Matt finishes the show with a prediction on the hottest story in town: Parmigiano Reggiano signing with UTA (25:57). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Tom Freston Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:00.0	Let's hear from the Chancellor Jeffrey.
0:02.3	From the Chancellor, Nigel.
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0:05.4	Kenneth.
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0:06.9	George.
0:07.3	Philip.
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0:33.5	you don't need to know the friend of a friend of the second cousin of a dog walker who went to school with the adopted son of a reflexologist
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1:00.2	It is Thursday, November 20th.
1:02.8	With Paramount in the news so much these days and the battle over its future and what to do with the dying cable TV networks,
1:09.7	it's easy to forget that cable was once
1:11.7	the greatest business in the history of media. Back in the 80s and 90s, if you were an
1:16.1	advertiser and you wanted to reach young people, there was really no way to avoid MTV, Nickelodeon,
1:21.5	BET, Comedy Central, the networks that specialized in younger audiences. And few people were more
	...

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