SURVIVING THE NEPO-APOCALYPSE

How To Stop Working For Chief Failure Officers

Happy Monday Peaceniks. Ready for Layoff Season? Let me tell you a story first...

In 2015, I convinced Brian Roberts to remove The Office from Netflix and put it on a new streaming service I was building at NBCU. The Office was, at the time, the most streamed TV series in the world.

NBCU’s head of program sales told me NBCU didn’t have the right to do that. She said that without having read the actual contract. The contract was clear: NBCU did have that right.

So, we informed Netflix that The Office would come off their platform. They told us we didn’t have that right. They said that without reading the contract. We did have that right.

Then, Netflix offered NBCU $100 million dollars, on top of what they were already paying, to keep the show, exclusively. Brian Roberts, son of the founder of the company he runs, and Steve Burke, himself a classic nepo-baby, informed me that they were taking the money and that the central strategy for the new, expensive comedy streaming service I was building – for them – would be pulled out from under our business plan. We launched Seeso, a comedy streaming service, without The Office or Parks and Rec, but with some very cool original programming.

When I took the gig at NBCU, the nepo-babies promised me full support and vast resources. They promised me that they would put the full force of Symphany (their silly name for the synergistic marketing NBCU employed for their most important initiatives like The Olympics and This Is Us) behind our new streaming platform. That Seeso would get ads for the streamer inside NFL games, The Tonight Show, and Saturday Night Live, giving us a huge advantage as a start-up inside the massive Media company.

When I eventually did ask for this Symphany support for Seeso’s launch, I was told, in the politest way possible, to fuck all the way off.

Two years later, when nepo-baby 1 and nepo-baby 2 fired me because Seeso was underperforming, I asked them if they remembered when I made them $100 million in free Netflix money by informing them of a right they did not know they had; or if they recalled their empty promises about marketing. They laughed and went to the sushi bar the company maintains on the 51^st floor of 30 Rock.

On the way out the door, I told the Kabletown brass that senior management’s core business strategy of “kick the can down the road” would ultimately cost the company dearly, that they were far behind the industry in digital transformation, that their long-held approach to content production – investing little, retaining very few rights, selling their best stuff to others for short term gain – would be their undoing. They gave me a check to leave them alone.

And that’s how I got fired from Kabletown and became the Media Cartographer. Here is a truly fun, and accurate, account of the entire sad and funny Seeso Saga in Vulture, told by the people who lived it.

Three years later… Comcast’s nepo-babies paid $500 million (wait for it) to take The Office off Netflix for their new streaming service, Peacock.

In my current role, three years ago this month, I told Brian Roberts, in this newsletter, that his broadband business was in real trouble, and that it would be his undoing. The OG nepo-baby, who had gotten rid of his nepo-bruh Burke a few years earlier, ignored me and the obvious warning signs, for years. In that same piece, I warned Kabletown that their lack of investment in a virtual MVPD and in mobile would bite them in their asses (right next to where their heads were stuck).

In the years since, Comcast has continued to meander in a business model desert, with a dull void where their corporate vision should be. This year, they announced one of the silliest moves in Media history: Spinning out their still profitable, but, yes, dying, cable networks into a new company, Versant. This was followed by the dumbest rebranding campaign since New Coke when they renamed MSNBC as MSNOW (Versant. Multiple Sclerosis Now. Both from the same folks who told me Seeso was a dumb name). They are keeping NBC, Bravo, and their flightless streamer Peacock at home with their flatlining MVPD business and listless broadband operation.

Finally, this summer, nepo-Brian announced that he was taking the problems in his broadband business serious (I mean it guys!). He hurriedly announced new partnerships to goose Comcast’s mobile game - three years after I warned them that they were in trouble. By the way, NBCU/Comcast/Kabletown is also laying off a bunch of folks to lower overhead and reorganize for a lame version of the transformation they could – and should – have made a decade ago. Don’t worry, though, the nepo-baby’s gig is safe.

When you look around at Big Media, and wonder why it is such a fucking mess, much of the blame lays at the feet and on the shoulders of the industry’s Chief Failure Officers: All-Star Accountability Avoider David Zaslav, Epic-Nepo-failure Shari Redstone, Ralph Roberts’ Little Boy Brian, and Paramount/Skydance’s newly anointed President of Failing Up, Jeff Shell. Unfortunately, the United Committee for Increasing C-Suite Salaries never pays the price for their fails, because they deflect the blame into “overhead” and cut thousands of jobs to distract from the fact that they have no fucking idea what they are doing.

That’s how we arrive, once again, at Layoff Season.

Paramount will be making massive job cuts – again. NBCU is in the midst of a pink slip-a-thon. Warner Bros Discover aka Warner Brothers and Discovery Global aka Disco Bros aka Zaslav’s Dumpster Fire, which is vomiting out their cable properties in a desperate copy-and-paste of Comcast, will shed hundreds, if not thousands, more executives and staff in the coming months.

The NBCU/Seeso nepo-Roberts tale is not just cautionary, it’s dangerously persistent. Big Media (and increasingly Big Tech) is literally infested with SVPs of Nephews, EVPs of Failing Upwards and General Managers of Fucking Up. Their main job descriptions are typically “KEEP THIS JOB AT ANY PRICE UNTIL I CAN LEAP TO AN EVEN BETTER PAYING OPPORTUNITY TO FAIL AGAIN.”

This Hapsburg Dynasty of Media Illiteracy has destroyed the entertainment business as we knew it. There are countless talented execs sacrificed on altars of their bosses’ bullshit, who now can’t find gigs, with countless more about to join them on the unemployment line. Writers, actors, crew, editors, designers, and producers now have nowhere to go to sell their wares, with fewer and fewer films and series getting greenlit, more and more money moving into sports, and much of today’s audiences relocating to social video.

Comcast was my last “job.” Since then, I have worked for myself. When I attempt to convince others to do the same, they tell me, “but I need security.” To which I say, “do you think corporate media gigs are safe?? Which ones?!”

About this time every year, for the last four years, the calendar turns to Layoff Season. And even though I loathe having to do it, each year I write a piece, not unlike this one, with my best practices and unsolicited advice for surviving a layoff, navigating the chaos, looking inside, and finding a new path – one that allows you to never rely on Chief Failure Officers for your living or career. So, without further ado, here we are…

ESHAP’s Best Practices for Surviving the Nepo-Failure Shit-Storm and Taking Control of Your Own Career:

1. FIX YOUR FUCKING LINKEDIN (and CV) ALREADY. Does your LinkedIn feed still use the generic header? If your name weren’t at the top, could literally anyone in the business slap their name there and it would not make a difference? Is your bio interesting or safe? Do you even have a bio? When was the last time you posted? We work in media—if you can’t use your LinkedIn to market yourself, this may no longer be the industry for you. No matter the stage of your career, if you can’t infuse some expertise into your feed for the career that you want, you will always lose to someone who can. Are you young and at the start of your career? Tell us what we need to know about how Gen Zs use Media. In a later career stage and looking for the next chapter? Tell us your story – and why it matters. Offer your thoughts on why our industry is such a mess. It’s time to drop pretense and speak some truth about yourself and the world around you. Most importantly, you need to put in the effort, every week, to draw the algorithm your way. That is quite literally how I got here, with you reading my advice.

2. TELL A STORY. One of the pieces of advice I offer most often is to tell a story that people want to read. Instead of bullet-pointing your career and accomplishments, craft a narrative about yourself that’s exclusively yours to tell. Sit down and write down your entire life story, from birth through today. Include everything – the successes, the failures, the heartbreaks, the challenges, the passions, and (most importantly) the personality that makes the people who love you, love you. Now turn it upside down and tell the story backwards, in your LinkedIn profile and on your CV. Edit out the boring stuff. Ask your English Major friend or Chat GPT to help you make it more concise – but keep it in complete fucking sentences that make it fun to read and truly show what you have actually done and why. Present as the best version of YOU that you can possibly present. Offer details only you know. Share experiences only you had. Rinse. Repeat.

3. TAKE STOCK. Your goal is not to “build a following,” but rather “ignite the network you already have.” Unless you are an asshole, you likely have a community of people who dig you. Your job, right now, is to give them all something to talk or think about. Nepo-babies literally rule the world right now. There is zero shame in reaching out to anyone and everyone you know and asking them for help – in a way that makes them want to help you. Offer people your help. Ask them for theirs. If they aren’t jerk-wads themselves, most will want to offer you help, or even have stuff for you to do.

4. REPAIR THE ASSHOLE PROBLEM. If people in your network are ignoring your entreaties, and ghosting your DMs, there is a chance that you are, in fact, an asshole. I am constantly inundated with outreach for advice and help. I almost always reply, meet-up, and offer help. And then there are those people who only reach out to me when they want something from me. Or who treated me badly but have no self-awareness. I block or ghost them. Taking stock means auditing your career for the good – and the bad. Not all career plateaus are caused by EVPs of Failing Up. Some are self-inflicted. Unfortunately, this applies to far more people than are aware of it. But it can be fixed. By (get this) trying. By being humble and asking for help, and/or forgiveness. If MSNBC can rebrand to “Ms Now!”, I promise that you can re-brand from asshole to fellow human.

5. FISH WHERE THE FISH ARE. The best jobs in the world are not listed anywhere. They are created and filled before they get listed. That is true for literally every corporate job I’ve ever had. You need to put yourself in opportunity’s line of fire. I don’t care if you don’t have a job: What are your plans for AdWeek? CES? SXSW? Any conference where your tribe gathers? Reach out to the organizers and see if there’s a panel you can help curate or moderate. Buy a pass, even if you need to pay for it yourself, then reach out and set meetings with the deciders who attend these shows. At these events, everyone is like a fish in a barrel. Most have nowhere else to be, and many are looking for ways to justify their expensive expense accounts. Plan far in advance so you can secure your spot on their calendars. Put yourself in places where people can see you. Hone your narrative. Be the best version of you that you can present. Rinse. Repeat.

6. EXPAND YOUR HORIZONS. Ten years from now, you will very likely be doing a job that does not exist today. I write a Substack newsletter, post on LinkedIn, and am widely known as the Media Universe Cartographer. If you told my ten-years-younger self that, I would likely have told you to get the fuck outta there. Media is screwed and getting screwier. Yes, there are good gigs to be gotten, but they’re almost all in places you never looked before: The Creator Economy (Dhar Mann Studios has 200 employees, Whalar Media is building a 32,000 square foot production facility, theater, podcasting studio, and office space in Brooklyn); Marketing on the brand side (Dick’s Sporting Goods just launched a content studio, Duolingo has an amazing social video team); Solo-practitioning (all these companies that are shedding talent still need to get the work done and are looking for fractional experts who don’t need offices or health insurance). Social video, gaming, next-gen marketing, and fractional executing are all expanding. The world is changing. Your career needs to change with it, or you can try to enjoy irrelevancy.

The epidemic of nepo-failures and Chief Fuck Up Officers will never be cured. Look at the history of the world and our industry – they are the world’s oldest professions. But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer these fools for the rest of your career. The most important thing you can do for yourself, your career, and your sanity, is to take control of your trajectory, establish your intrinsic value as a brand, expand your horizons beyond your resume, and write your next chapter the way you want it written.

It is not easy. It is hard. Not everyone will succeed. Because most will not really try. But if you put in the effort described above, put your authentic self out there, week after week after week, you can take the reins back from the nepo-babies and professional failure-uppers, and put yourself back in the driver’s seat.

If you’re looking to meet up at IBC, I am fully booked, it’s too late. Reread the list above. If you want to meet up at MIPCOM, reach out. I am still making plans. In the meantime…

Enjoy the week.

ESHAP