In Hollywood, everyone is an artist. And as artists, they often feel they are entitled to a certain amount of eccentricity and perfectionism, including but not limited to having their cake and eating it too (metaphorically speaking).

Rob explains why managing “the talent” —which includes anyone who interacts with studio management— sometimes calls for techniques that are more commonly associated with calming infants.

In Los Angeles, everyone’s in show business. Everyone.

There’s only one phrase a scriptwriter dreads more than “we love it, but we have some notes”: “we love it and have no notes.”

Rob discovers a WWII era psyops spy manual and realizes it is the perfect guide for disrupting the business practices of modern content companies. But —as a New Year’s resolution— he vows not to use the manual’s power for evil. For now.

Rob gives a master class in the unnecessarily complicated etiquette of wishing friends and family “Merry Chr…”, er, “Seasons Gree…”; uh, “Happy Holi…”. Well, you know what we’re trying to say.

Rob explains an immutable law of show biz physics: bad news travels slow because there’s no money in it, while good news travels fast --really fast-- turbo-charged by the notion that money is about to be spent.

Preston Beckman was a network programmer at NBC and Fox for over 30 years. He brought the country “Must See TV” at NBC and was witness to the the start of the reality revolution when he was at Fox.

Your podcast player has been Martini Shot-less for a while now, and Rob has a good reason for it.

Martini Shot Conversations is back with another chat with The Ankler’s Richard Rushfield. Rob and Richard cover the shifting sands of the TV business, CinemaCon pre and post COVID, the silly state of awards shows, and more. And yes, we will be returning with new episodes of Martini Shot very soon. Thanks for being patient as Rob gets […]