Code Media 2019: News & updates

When it comes to deciding what shows and films to create for its new Disney+ streaming service, Disney is relying on its leaders’ creative instincts much more than it’s considering data points.

That’s what Kevin Mayer, chairman of direct-to-consumer and international at Disney, told Recode’s Peter Kafka at the 2019 Code Media conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday, one week after the launch of Disney+. The service debuted with an expansive library that includes its Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars catalogs, as well as a handful of new and exclusive movies and shows. It’s gradually going to build out its offerings, and it plans to do so prudently. It’s going to consider what the data predicts will play best with audiences — but it won’t be overly reliant on these metrics.

Being the flagship show of Apple’s new original TV content platform, Apple TV+, comes with a lot of attention — and some serious haters, according to its showrunners.

The Morning Show, which debuted on Apple TV+, is a series about a morning news TV show set in the Me Too era. The producers of the show, Mimi Leder and Kerry Ehrin, talked onstage at Recode’s Code Media conference about the challenges of launching a high-profile show on a new service, and some of the mixed critical reviews it’s received.

Vice’s old CEO, Shane Smith, is a scandal-plagued figure in media circles. But Vice’s new CEO Nancy Dubuc doesn’t think he gets enough respect.

Dubuc took over as CEO in early 2018 after reports emerged of a rampant frat-boy culture at the media company that caters to millennials who are turned off by traditional old-guard media fogeys. Smith, the ousted CEO who once called himself a “brand artist,” remains the company’s chairman, so he is still involved in selling ads to possible buyers.

“We bought the brand Sports Illustrated; we didn’t buy the company,” Maven Media founder and CEO James Heckman told the Code Media audience in Los Angeles about the company’s highly controversial purchase and restructuring of the venerated sports publication earlier this year.

He also didn’t buy Sports Illustrated’s business model, which consisted of paying a large staff of traditional journalists with money made from selling ads. After buying Sports Illustrated, Maven promptly laid off nearly 40 percent of its editorial staff.

Facebook has come under heavy scrutiny in recent months over its political ads policy that allows politicians to lie in ads. On Monday, one of Facebook’s top marketers again defended the policy and said the company has no plans to change it, insisting that it’s up to voters to decide what messages resonate and are true, even if they’re false.

“That’s not a role that Facebook should be playing and interfering with democracy,” said said Carolyn Everson, vice president of global marketing solutions at Facebook, in an interview with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the 2019 Code Media conference in Los Angeles on Monday. But critics have argued that Facebook’s policy allows political campaigns to do that very thing.

If the guy leading HBO’s parent company WarnerMedia has his way, the new HBO Max streaming video service won’t just be a Netflix competitor for cord cutters, it’ll be a new kind of cable bundle.

In an interview at Recode’s Code Media conference on Monday in Los Angeles, California, CEO John Stankey said the vision for HBO Max is to create a bundle of content that includes movies and shows not owned by WarnerMedia in addition to those it creates and licenses on its own.

Recode’s annual Code Media conference kicks off on Monday, November 18, in Los Angeles. Senior Media Correspondent Peter Kafka will be hosting two days of hard-hitting, unscripted interviews with:

That’s just part of our jam-packed schedule.