Martini Shot

Time was when networks would land a major star, with the next step finding a writer with “auspices” — an industry term for somebody proven, with a hit show already on air. The only issue? Those successful writers often couldn’t write. In spite of that, those series sometimes became massive hits. Which is why Rob Long wants to keep optimism alive. After all, as he says, “Hey, could work.” Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

Like Rob Long’s old Subaru, show business is leaky and can emit a toxic cloud — but it works. That is, until Silicon Valley strides in and tries to plug up the holes with things like “ad-free offerings” and an “all-inclusive monthly price”. What the tech overlords don’t get, though: It’s all those wires and oil and grime that keep the engine running. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

No matter how successful you are, the pitching never ends. Even the most seasoned TV creator has been known to melt down in front of their G-Wagon when they can’t land a greenlight: “Why don’t they just say yes?” Silicon Valley tech giants thought they could disrupt the “terrible business” of entertainment — less buying and selling, more ownership and verticality — which led to the streaming wars, and now a contracting industry where “the yeses just aren’t coming.” Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

There are two keys to making money in showbiz: make a hit, and make it easy to watch and find. In other words, make the experience more like shopping on Amazon. Easy is why kids are on YouTube, Rob Long is watching The Gilded Age in TikTok snippets and why Amazon makes being online a seamless experience — except on Prime Video. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

Rob Long recently sold all the old junk from his house: airplane bottles of Dutch gin, a Yemeni incense burner, asparagus tongs and two boxes of computer cables, naturally. Refreshed and ready to begin a new chapter, Rob thinks studios need a similar garage sale with each other’s libraries. Offer up titles, make some swap deals — and reset the whole system, from the IP up. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

Languages other than English have special words for special situations (looking at you Germany and your fingerspitzenfühl). Now, Rob Long proposes a new local lexicon to help capture this particular moment now in the industry, a place where schadenfreude is giving way to another, strange new feeling: Hope for even someone else’s show, any show, to get made. Even if it’s about linemen in buckets. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a new members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

Mid-life, Rob Long has gone back to school. Princeton Theological Seminary has been a nice timeout from Hollywood — no profanity, shouting or the pressure to wrap up every meeting with a joke. But Rob is not ditching Hollywood. Instead he ponders bridging the secular and ecclesiastical divide by showing up to his next meeting in a priest’s collar to watch what happens. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a new members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

Brand extensions? Prequel? Janet Bond?? Rob Long bets meetings at Amazon are underway with those bullet points in a PowerPoint now that the franchise has been wrested away from its legendarily impossible owners, the Broccolis. Corporate-controlled and obligated by fiduciary responsibility, 007 has secured the plot of his next adventure: shaking every last dime out of his Savile Row suit. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a new members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

One of the problems facing showbiz right now: Too many production companies, private equity investors, and celebrity shingles — but not enough set-up projects. That’s why it’s worth remembering the actor-producer-garbageman Rob Long once hired, whose business card was a reminder of simpler times: the producer’s vanity card. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a new members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.

New streamers all want to be the place that gets it. They’ll say, “Come here and be creative! Give us your quirky, oddball stuff!” But before you know it, Rob Long finds they’re giving notes on the act break and telling writers to raise the stakes. But anybody that’s been in this business awhile, or had any degree of success, can relate — it’s easy to forget that you don’t know all the answers. Transcript here. For more entertainment news, subscribe to The Ankler or apply to The Ladder, a new members-only hub for early career entertainment professionals.