Channels with Peter Kafka

Latest Episodes:

Why ESPN’s old boss made movies you can’t see - yet Jul 03, 2023

Show notes

Former head of ESPN John Skipper has produced an ambitious new project. Now he has to figure out how to get it in front of you: Sports

Explains the World is a series of films featuring well-known personalities (like Curt Schilling) and people you’ve never heard of (like a group of skater girls in Ethiopia). What it doesn’t have, yet, is a deal to get them on a TV screen near you — a condition that may or may not say a lot about the streaming industry in 2023. Skipper and executive producer Smriti Keshari recently sat down with Vox’s Peter

Kafka at the Tribeca Film Festival to talk about the work of figuring out what streamers want, why an a la carte ESPN would be a bad deal for consumers and why nothing will ever live up to The Last Dance.

Featuring: John Skipper (@johnskipper), Cofounder and CEO of Meadowlark Media

Smriti Keshari (@keshari), filmmaker and Executive Producer of Sports Explains the World

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

More to explore: Subscribe for free to Recode Media, Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape.

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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How to make laughs on TikTok and action on Netflix Jun 29, 2023

Show notes

Comedian Nimesh Patel was grinding it out in the stand-up mines for years with middling success. And then the stage changed. Patel tells us how TikTok changed everything and what it’s like to live at the whim of the algorithm.

Then, host Peter Kafka catches up with former stunt coordinator and current filmmaker Sam Hargrave about the secret sauce of making action films for Netflix. It’s a lot of punching, a little Chris Hemsworth and a dash of stabbing the crap of people. His new movie, Extraction 2, is out on the streamer now.

Featuring: Nimesh Patel (@findingnimesh), stand-up comedian

Sam Hargrave, director of Extraction 2 on Netfilx

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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Is Instagram the place to unbreak news? Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

Mosheh Oinounou worked his way up through the TV news ranks and ended up running CBS Evening News. Now he’s starting over - this time on Instagram - with Mo News, a platform he says is a more responsive way to deliver news to an engaged audience. Oinounou talks to Vox’s Peter Kafka about the maladies affecting conventional news, the challenge of bootstrapping a news outlet in 2023, and why CNN’s former boss Chris Licht may have gotten at least one thing right.

Then, Peter talks to his friend and former co-worker Jason Del Rey about his adventures covering Amazon and Walmart, and how he turned that into Winner Sells All, his deeply researched new book.

Featuring: Mosheh Oinounou (@Mosheh), Founder of Mo News

Jason Del Rey (@DelRey), Journalist & Author of Winner Sells All

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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Meet the AI company that wants to remake Hollywood Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

For some people that’s a dystopian vision. But for Cristóbal Valenzuela, it’s a mission statement: Valenzuela is the co-founder and CEO of Runway, an AI startup that wants to radically change the way movies and TV are made. Right now the buzzy company - currently valued at $1.5 billion - helps TV shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once create special effects at a fraction of the traditional cost. But Valenzuela has much bigger ambitions for his product. And he thinks generative AI will be a major part of the stuff we watch in the near future. He talks to Vox’s Peter Kafka about the promise of that prediction — and the costs.

References made during the episode:

Runway's Guide to Rotoscoping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wb1N_EitdI
Paul Trillo's short film THANK YOU FOR NOT ANSWERING: https://vimeo.com/821101511

Featuring: Cristóbal Valenzuela (@c_valenzuelab), Co-Founder & CEO of Runway

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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CNN’s CEO is out; Apple reveals its goggles Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

After just over a year of questionable leadership and on the heels of an unflattering Atlantic profile, Chris Licht is out as the head of CNN. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Puck’s Dylan Byers, who not only covered Licht, but became part of the story.

Then! Apple revealed its long-rumored mixed-reality headset this week. It’ll cost $3,500 when it goes on sale sometime next year, and will allow people who aren’t you to see your eyes while you use it. Wired’s Lauren Goode went face-on with the new device and shares her impressions.

Featuring: Dylan Byers (@DylanByers), Founding Partner and Senior Correspondent at Puck

Lauren Goode (@LaurenGoode), Senior Staff Writer at Wired

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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NYT rising star Astead Herndon on podcasts, power, and the 2024 race Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

It’s not just Ron DeSantis: All kinds of candidates are piling into the 2024 presidential race. New York Times national politics reporter Astead W. Herndon is covering the contest in audio form, via his show, “The Run-Up” — a weekly deep dive from the campaign trail. Herndon’s reporting is thoughtful and clear-eyed, and gives everyone he talks to — candidates, party leaders and, crucially, voters — the opportunity to really explain how the world looks from their perspective.

Vox’s Peter Kafka is a huge fan, and talks to Herndon about his very fast rise in journalism, how he prepares to talk to people from all walks of life (including the MyPillow guy); why audio reporting is so different than text; and how hosting a New York Times podcast compares to being on the front page of the New York Times.

Featuring: Astead Herndon (@asteadwh), Politics Reporter for NY Times & Political Analyst for CNN

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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Meet the media insider who makes Succession feel real May 22, 2023

Show notes

Succession — the HBO drama about a Murdoch-ish family of media moguls — feels authentic thanks, in part, to consultant Merissa Marr. Marr covered the Murdochs and other media titans for years at The Wall Street Journal, and she’s worked with the creative team behind Succession since the beginning. Vox’s Peter Kafka talks to Marr about Succession’s obsession with getting tiny details about Big Media just right; which non-Murdoch moguls influence the show’s depiction of the Roy clan; what happens when art and reality clash — and, of course, some Elon Matsson talk.

Featuring: Merissa Marr (@mermarr), media journalist and TV consultant

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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It’s TV’s biggest week - and TV is on strike May 15, 2023

Show notes

Live from New York, it’s Upfronts week, where TV networks sell billions of dollars of advertising with glitzy presentations. It’s also the third week of the writers’ strike, which means the people who make the shows that run in between ads are picketing those presentations. So it’s a good time to talk about the state of the post-streaming boom TV business. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw drops by the studio to talk to Vox’s Peter Kafka about challenges facing the networks as they sell ads, and the writers as they try to get better deals - and whether either side really thinks AI is going to write a script anytime soon.

Featuring: Lucas Shaw (@Lucas_Shaw), media reporter for Bloomberg

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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Ken Jennings on the future of Jeopardy! May 11, 2023

Show notes

Ken Jennings won 74 straight episodes of Jeopardy back in 2004. Somehow he’s turned that winning streak into a career, and now co-hosts the surprisingly resilient game show.

Peter Kafka talked to Jennings about his job and much more at the Crosscut Ideas Festival in Seattle. And while the sound quality isn’t pristine, the conversation covers a lot of ground. Jennings, for instance, talks about the tension between Jeopardy’s producers, who want to refresh the show in the hopes of bringing in new viewers, with its large and loyal audience, who want things kept the way they are. Also discussed: Why you still can’t stream Jeopardy! (blame it on syndication), the show’s attempts to diversify the contestant pool, and how, as a man who once competed against an AI named Watson (and lost), he sees AI could be used as a tool to help Jeopardy! in the future.

Featuring: Ken Jennings (@KenJennings), Jeopardy! Co-Host

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

About Recode by Vox: Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us.

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How worried—or excited—should we be about AI? May 04, 2023

Show notes

AI is amazing… or terrifying, depending on who you ask. This is a technology that elicits strong, almost existential reactions. So in the final episode of our special series about AI, we dig into the giant ambitions and enormous concerns people have about the very same tech.

Featuring: New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose (@kevinroose), who tells me why his viral conversation with Bing’s AI chatbot changed the way he thought about the new tech.

Then: Google has everything to lose here, so I speak with James Manyika, Google’s Senior Vice President of Technology and Society, about the company’s ambitions for AI. [9:23]

Plus: I talk to Professor Emily M. Bender (@emilymbender), one of the people behind a now-famous paper on AI’s limits. Her “stochastic parrot” seems to have hit a nerve with some of AI’s biggest proponents. So maybe she’s onto something. [29:30]

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