What's Next Summit: Sara Fischer + Cesar Conde, Chairman, NBCUniversal News Group

Sarah, how are you? Hey, I'm great. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Well, I saw first of all, great to see you Sarah, thank you so much for the invitation. Congratulations to Jim Mike wherever you are in the entire Axial team on the launch of this new event. We're very excited for you. I did see those reports over the weekend including the report from Axios, and you know, I don't have anything to add beyond what's in the reports, beyond that particular report.

You know, I think the great thing about all these emerging new platforms that we're seeing in the media ecosystem, streaming being one of the primary ones today, I think what that has allowed us and a lot of other media companies is to begin to bring in a variety of different voices and perspectives. We have more places to have individuals. And so in our particular case, in the past what we've done is we've tried to bring in a variety of different individuals who bring unique perspectives. We've brought in journalists like Tom Yamas for our primary NBC News streaming platform, we've brought in Simone as you said, a political contributor, we've brought in Joshua Johnson from the radio space, Katie Fang one of the great legal minds. So we'll continue to do that because we think that it allows us to tap into brand new audiences and hopefully that will help bring audiences to our overall portfolio.

Look, I think again the ecosystem that's developing in the digital space, we're seeing so many of these new platforms, it just provides more space. Streaming is one of them, audio and podcast is another place that we are seeing a tremendous amount of audience move towards. And so we have much more real estate in this day and age than we did in the old days where we just had a grid during the day and a few hours in the morning and a few hours at night. I don't want to say that we have an infinite amount of inventory, but we have a lot more inventory. And we think that's great for audiences because they'll be able to tap into new people that may be of interest to them, and that's hopefully something we'll be able to contribute to over time.

So Rachel is a great example of someone that's going to be with us for so many years, and it's a great example of our distribution, our digital approach. At the center of it, what we call our omnichannel strategy. What do I mean by that? It means we want to make sure that we have our content being distributed to our audiences on all of the platforms and all of the places that they're choosing to consume their information and their news. So when you think of someone like Rachel who has a large engaged following that wants to hear more from her, we're in the great situation where we can have someone like her contribute on our cable network, and we can have her also now begin to be part of our streaming platform, and we can have her build content for podcasts or audio, and she can build long form or documentary type information for topics that require or merit deeper investigative work. That's one great example. We're doing that with a lot of talent. Jim Cramer from CNBC is someone we're expanding to the direct-to-consumer space. Andrew Rossorkin is now been tapped to do a long form show on NBC News Now. So we can do it not just with talent, we can do it with brands. At NBC News, we have the Today Show. People think of it as the morning show, but it has evolved over the years to be almost like a lifestyle brand. So we are able to take something like the Today Show and expand it into streaming where we now have Today All Day, a 24/7 streaming platform. We're able to have our talent like Hoda Kotb launch a podcast, Jenna Hager Bush has a book club. So it allows us to play in a lot of different places. We think that is one of the directions where the industry is going. Talent and brands matter more in an omnichannel ecosystem. This is a win for talent, audiences, and us.

Rachel's going to be with us for a long time and we're going to see more of Rachel, not less.

Look, we have incredible journalists who have tremendous bandwidth. Ensuring that we're resourcing our teams in the proper way to feed all of these different platforms is top of mind. But I think our journalists love the ability to reach audiences on so many more platforms. Yes, there's a bit more they need to do, but it ensures we give as much resources as we can to emerging platforms.

We have a little over 3,000 plus folks in our news organization globally, yes.

The reports out of Ukraine even since yesterday are horrific. When this crisis started, I was reminded of how fortunate we are to live in the United States. Millions of Ukrainians have fled their democracy out of fear of autocracy. This has personal resonance for me. My mom left Cuba in the early 1960s. I grew up with deep respect for journalism in a democracy. As we look at Ukraine, we consider the military confrontation, humanitarian crisis, and geopolitical ramifications. We look through the Russia-Ukraine lens, the US and NATO alliance, and the role of China. This crisis will go for a long time, and we are preparing for the long haul.

No, this is an incredibly important issue. The geopolitical ramifications are significant. We're watching the NATO alliance and role of China. On the ground reporting is critical. This war is a prism for journalism today. We see the bravery of journalists in harm's way. It's a different war, forcing us to revisit our assumptions. For example, we usually assume proximity to US military for security, but not in Ukraine. We are also dealing with a proliferation of misinformation. In the first days, 70-80% of videos we received were fake or doctored. We had to verify everything. We have a team dedicated to that. We are also dealing with the fact that people are getting news faster but not necessarily better. Our focus is taking the work of our journalists, deciphering fact from fiction, and disseminating across all platforms.

Let me address misinformation. Over the last few years, the vital role of a strong independent media has been reinforced. We have strengths in our industry. Covering complex issues like the pandemic, economic crisis, social justice, and Ukraine requires expertise, resources, and courage. Our journalists are like first responders. However, trust in institutions is a challenge. We believe in proactive steps: focus on facts and accuracy, hold ourselves accountable, diversify our newsrooms to represent all communities, offer free access to world-class journalism to prevent people from relying only on social media, and use the same platforms that spread misinformation to disseminate high-quality journalism. None of these are silver bullets, but we must focus on what we can control.

Sure. In the 2020 census, people under 18 who are people of color crossed 50% for the first time. The overall US population will cross that threshold soon. We chose to be future-focused and launched the 50 Challenge, with the aspiration that half our news team would be women and half people of color. We're not putting a timeline because we want sustainable, systemic change. We're about to hit the two-year mark this summer. We had great progress in the first year, and we'll move the needle every year thoughtfully. This is the right thing for our businesses, as it helps us tap into new audiences and authentically address topics.

It's a fair question. We leaned into transparency. When we announced the 50 initiative, we publicly stated we were at 27.5% people of color. We committed to yearly reports, and we did that last year, even breaking it down by ethnicity. So we hold ourselves accountable publicly, and we hope others do the same.

Sure. Consumption patterns have shifted, accelerated by the pandemic. Two things drive change: demographic change and technology. Streaming is where people are moving. Entertainment streaming habits are set, but news streaming habits are just forming. That's why we invested aggressively. We launched NBC News Now, a 24/7 news offering distributed broadly. We also launched Today All Day. But we also felt it was important to put MSNBC on Peacock behind a paywall. So we offer both free and subscription options to our audiences.

Telemundo has an incredible journalism history. It gave me a front-row seat to the demographic tsunami of the Latino community in the US, which drives population growth, especially among the young. We called it the 3M generation: millennial, multicultural, mobile. Understanding that audience informed my approach to developing new services and attracting younger audiences. Telemundo also covers news outside the US, which has been valuable for covering Ukraine and other crises. It also reminds us that great talent can come from anywhere, and we tap into bilingual talent for our news group. For example, Jose Diaz-Balart now appears on MSNBC.

We think there's a tremendous hunger for news in the Hispanic media space, and Telemundo will continue to invest and diversify into all emerging platforms.

This is an emerging topic. In linear, we have specific metrics, but they're becoming less important. In digital, reach and engagement levels are important. The ability to attract broader and diverse audiences is fundamental. For example, NBC News Now's average age is 35-40, compared to 60+ for traditional news. That's a generation younger, which is a big step forward for us.

We have metrics like monthly viewers, monthly visitors, and time spent. On a free basis, that's how we measure. On the subscription side, once MSNBC launches, subscriber numbers will be a metric.

Not off the top of my head, but it's in the tens of millions on a monthly basis.

Return to office is top of mind. The last two years have been challenging. We learned that a hybrid flexible environment is a net positive for work-life balance. We also learned to use technology better, like video for guests. But we also recognized the power of proximity. Journalists need to be on the ground. In the office, creativity and collaboration are stronger in person. We also worry about hundreds of new employees who have never experienced our culture in person. Learning through osmosis and mentorship is critical for their careers. So we want to find a balance.

Yellowstone. If you haven't checked it out on Peacock. But Bob Backus isn't going to want to take that back.