YouSaid · the spoken record

Harvey Mason Jr.

lines on the record: 90
first: 2024-11-11
most recent: 2024-11-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I do. I have a view of some of the coolest and best new artists and music. It's one of my favorite parts of the job is getting to meet these creators, but I'm going to ruin the question because it would be irresponsible of me to tell you who the next person was or somebody that I love because there's just so many and I don't want it to seem as if it's an academy endorsement. But I will say this, I think there's more new creators making music, making great art than in the history of music because of the access, because of the technology, because of the young woman I saw on the plane programming on a laptop like this, because of the fact that you can put music out without gatekeepers, without barriers to entry. You know the amount of”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we can continue to make a living. We have a whole group of people who make their money, their living. They pay their rent and take care of their kids by creating art. And we have another generation that's coming up that wants to do the same thing because they know how we express ourselves. We know how music can sometimes heal and unite people. And sometimes people be, I was on a plane the other day, and there was a woman sitting next to me, a couple seats over on a laptop, and she was crying. I thought she was like typing a letter to somebody. She was programming in logic on her keyboard crying. So this is therapy. This is expression. This is a human emotion. And so I want to make sure that we're realizing that and we're realizing, yes, AI is a part of that. How can it be integrated in a way that's responsible and reasonable?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Members are split. There's a lot of members that say AI is the devil. Don't let it in the house. And they are fearful, rightfully so. And then there's another group of our members that are really excited about the power and the potential of AI. And they're all in. They're creating, using it. They're doing everything they can using AI. And neither side is wrong. And again, the beauty of music or art or creativity. Everybody creates differently. So my role is a difficult one is to try and serve our membership and our music community fairly and in a way that allows for a bright future for our creators, whether that's using AI or whether that's limiting AI or making sure there's guidelines around AI, it's to be determined. But my focus when I wake up is to make sure our human creativity is healthy. It's allowed to endure.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm hoping to, but he has a favorite artist. I know he does. He has a band. He grew up listening to his whole life in his bedroom while he was programming some computer. He loves somebody, or he's read a book that mattered, or he saw a piece of art that moved him. Everybody has, well, maybe not everybody, but most people. So all that to say, I believe in human creativity. I believe in AI and the power that it has enhance and amplify human creativity. And there's a way that they can coexist. I believe.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Addressed and would want to come up with a solution that made sense. Whether it's the guys you mentioned or heads of other companies, I just think there's a way to do it. I know everybody's trying to do their build their companies, make value for their investors and shareholders. And there's a lot of levels to this. But at the base, it's music, man. It is music. We can't have Wild, Wild West around copyright and ownership and intellectual property protections. Stuff needs to be done properly so that we can continue to tell these stories, to have these emotions and the heart and soul behind these songs. Otherwise, what are we doing? We're just going to have the computer make everything. Now, if you look at AI for other things that are talking about.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, it'll be messier because it is such a wider reaching issue. But I do think there's a way, maybe I'm overly optimistic in rose colored glasses, but I think people realize the importance of music, maybe broader the importance of art and AI has an impact across all the different disciplines of artistry. And if we can... Continue to emphasize the value and the importance of it and point out that this has the potential to really be harmful to it. I have to believe in my human heart that anybody would want that to be.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And AI is just like massive open ecosystem. And then at the top of it is Mark Zuckerberg and Sundarpachai at Google and Sam Altman, who just don't seem to give a shit, right? Like if you're some lawyer for some artist and you try to roll up on Sam Altman, he's going to look, I stole Scarlett Johansson's voice. Like, what are you going to do to me?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If we can advocate properly and loudly enough, even within the tech platforms throughout the labels and publishers, journalists, podcast hosts, we can talk about this enough, come to an understanding of how this needs to function as confusing as that might be. We can start to manage some of it internally. Same things happen when we started sampling other people's records. We had a bunch of hit records that included other people's samples that ran its course. We kind of figured out how it needed to be treated and handled. Same thing with streaming. There's things like people were putting music all over the internet and on streaming services and we've gotten to a place where we're slightly better still work to do there. I believe we'll come to some solutions around AI and how we can all equally or equitably participate in the revenue.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Understandings come from litigation, right? I mean, we're going to have to go fight this out. Someone's going to have to sue the copyright office or someone's going to have to sue. One artist is going to have to sue another.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And she said, okay, I think that's right. I think that's human interaction. So none of this is figured out. You know, if the head of the copyright office, who I thought was amazing and incredible, and I love the fact that she was interested and cared enough to come to my studio, but the fact that we don't have an understanding of how this moves forward and how we protect creators, whether that's the songwriters you mentioned or people that just had catalogs for 20 years ago, we're not going to have good clean air”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I said, well, I typed in the prompt. She's like, oh, well, Harvey, that's not enough. So I took the same track and I typed a response. I said, well, change the key, change the tempo, and change these three lyrics. And I sent it back to the platform and sent back a new song. I said, now is that copyrightable? And she says, no, it's getting closer, but I don't think it's enough. So I did another prompt. So I did three rounds of prompts and came back. It's a slightly different song.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think that's the best I can give you because as you said, certain artists tend to claim ownership differently than others. Also, artists sometimes have publishers or record companies that own pieces of their catalog that tend to be more aggressive than some artists might naturally be. But as you start introducing AI, unless we can understand where it's coming from, what it's replicating or learning from and trying to simulate, it's going to be really dang hard to figure out where the money needs to go or how the money can flow. I'll tell you one story. I met with the head of the copyright office. She was an amazing woman. She came to my studio actually and we started pulling up some of the generative AI platforms and I was showing her how it worked. This is probably eight months ago. She hadn't really been exposed a bunch of it and I typed in a few words and we made a track, a song and I said, is that copyrightable? And she says, no, it's not. It has to have human interaction or human involvement.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Loud bridges. Like, how do you see that resolving in the world of AI? Like, it's already chaos without AI. And now we're using AI tools when we're saying the answer to AI is to create more ownership of things like voices and core progressions and sounds.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Controversial. I'm already playing with fire now. The two fandoms aren't going to come for me. But that's the thing that happened. It's very controversial. And then Elvis Costello, who's one of my favorite artists ages ago, came out and said, okay, I agree that Olivia song Brutal sounds a lot like pump it up. And then his quote was, this is fine by me. That's how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That's what I did. I did not find any reason to go after them legally for that because I think it would be ludicrous. Other people clearly felt differently about songs on that record. So we've now created a scenario where it's like the artist's choice whether they go after other artists for using things like chord progressions or”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The money moves around in the music industry. We've tried to solve that problem in different ways. So streaming rates went down and now we all argue about songwriting credits to make sure some of the pennies come back to the original artists because the streaming isn't paying those artists. I'll give you an example only just because Olivier Rodrigo's guts tour movie just hit Netflix. So I saw a bunch of coverage of this again. Taylor Swift came and took a credit on deja”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Does but also laws protect certain usage of other people's voice, even if it's another human doing it. You can't pretend to be an artist and then go monetize that in certain ways. So there's laws in the books that already prevent that from happening.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even those two things you said, right? We don't want to stop office and personnaires where we don't want people to use artists' voices without compensation. Yeah, that means the obvious impersonators have to pay, like just that little basic thing. Don't use my voice for that impersonation. Does it matter to you whether it's AI or whether it's an all-vis impersonator or a Britney Spears?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, there's a lot of nuance. There's no perfect bill. None of these bills are exact. Everyone is trying to compensate and accommodate the needs of a lot of people that have concerns and fears. Of course, we don't want to prevent someone from impersonating Elvis, but we do want to prevent people from impersonating artists, singers, and using their voice without any form of payment or approval or the right crediting. And these bills are starts. I'm sure they'll be revised. I'm sure there'll be new bills, new things enacted. But right now, we've got bipartisan, bicameral support that there needs to be some legislation that supports and protects human creativity and human artistry. So for us, it's a first step.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No perfect solution or magic bullet to any of this stuff, especially the speed at which it's moving. We are really proud of the legislation that's been introduced in passed in a couple of different states, but now we're pushing for federal legislation with the nofakes, no frauds act in the House and the Senate.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a complicated subject. So I think there's some. Some real talks that need to happen around that. Should it be compensated on the training side? At least we need to know what it's training on, how much of it is being used. So there's a lot of nuance to that question.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I believe there needs to be an understanding of what these models are training on. And I'm not sure exactly to what level it will come down, whether there's compensation payment or crediting. But I do think something has to change. And I don't believe that people's personally copywritten material should just be used or accessed by everyone to do anything they want with. So we have to come to bottom line understand there's fairly trained models out there, people that are licensing groups of music or catalogs to train AI on. And I think that's a good place to start. But there's a lot to talk about. That's probably a whole other show that we could dive a little deeper into.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If AI is writing the song, we will not give an award for the songwriting component. So if, for example, if you wrote a song, it was a beautiful composition, it was the best lyrics, best music, best chord progressions, and you had AI sing it, you could submit it. It's not going to win for singing. It could win for songwriting. And conversely, if you had AI just write a song as a great song, but some vocalist sang it or rapped on it and they performed the heck out of it. I'm not going to penalize the human creativity that went into that. So I'm not going to give an award for the sorrel, but I will give it an award for the performance. And that's the way our rules are currently. I'm sure it's going to change. This stuff is moving so quickly. But for now, that's how the academy is moving.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Same way that we lit music that have samples be eligible or we let music that has synthesizers or auto-tune or pro tools be eligible. It's a technology and an evolution that has allowed people to do more, create differently, think differently, make sounds we've never heard before. So for us to draw a line in the sand and say if you use artificial intelligence, you are ineligible would be, I think, short-sighted. And I think it would also cut down on a lot of the music that's being created and submitted. Also, where would you draw the line? I mean, there's AI and so much of the software we use now for even analyzing and doing mixes and sound design, not even just the generative AI that's making music. But the finer point is that we'll allow AI to be utilized, but we're not going to honor AI in the sense that if AI is performing a song, it's in our rules. We will not give the performance an award.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I look at the industry right now. I brought up BBL Jerzy. I think that beat was made with Yudio, which is one of the AI song generation tools. Yudio, and then its competitor Suno were sued by a bunch of record labels because they've just ingested a vast catalog of music in order to build those tools and train on. That seems like a comet that's going to hit the earth, right? That loss will get resolved one way or the other, and then we'll all live inside of that framework. Why let the people using those tools when no one knows how the money works or even if they're appropriate or legal be eligible for Grammys now before the industry is sorted out the morality or economics of those tools?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Chaos and uncertainty in life and the stuff that AI hates and we make incredible art from it. And we are able to dig down deep into like some of our most creative spaces and pull out the next amazing thing and make great art that I don't think any computer is going to match on. As much as we're nervous and we worry about, I don't think you can tell me that AI can create songs in the key of life or never mind or illmatic. I don't see it happening. So I want to make sure we're able to use AI and I'm not an AI hater. I think it's got great potential. I've been using it for eight or nine years in different forms. I've always been an early adopter to new tech. So I'm with it. I get it. But we have to make sure human creativity is protected. And we have a chance to make sure we're remunerated properly. We have proper approvals and make sure it's credited properly. Those are the things that are really important to me.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“State of play is so much uncertainty, and I'm concerned because AI as it relates to human creativity scares me to death. I know it has a lot of power and potential to enhance. Amplify human creativity, but right now we don't have guardrails in place. We don't have any systems or processes set up so that human creators can be protected. So the state of play is like, we've got to get to work as an industry. And I know a lot of the smartest people are investing in AI, which I totally understand because it is so powerful and it is so, there's so much potential. But for me as a musician, as someone who also represents 25,000 members and music people from around the world, I want to make sure that human creativity is protected for all the reasons I just said, the importance of music and the ability for us to tell stories and change hearts and minds. I think the human component to that is really, really dang important. So a little nervous that we haven't got it sorted out, but I'm also optimistic, to be honest, Neil, because human creators are not like computers. We take the”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Going to continue doing that work to change and evolve every day so that we can keep doing what we need to do to lift music people.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, this stuff is important. Music is so dang important, especially right now. Maybe more than ever with the way the country's gone, the world's gone, with so many disparate ideas and opinions. But I've seen it, Nili. When I travel, when I see other parts of the world listening to music, listening to artists, we might have a crazy disagreement. But when the music comes on, everybody's like dancing and clapping and singing. And it just opens up people's minds and their eyes. And so because of the power of music and because of my belief and the academy's belief in the power of music, we're going to do everything we can to try and make sure that we're supporting it. We're lifting it up. We're showcasing it and giving it a chance to do what it does. And if that means shortening the show, we'll do that. If that means lengthening the show, more artists, less artists.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are a smart guy. You're asking me all the questions that I ask myself, and I'm going to come get you to work with me, man. You know how to think about this stuff. But it is really, really top of mind for me and for our team as to how do we continue to be relevant. Because if you do the same thing over and over again, it's not cool. No one's going to take it. No one's going to be excited about it. So the hard part of it is, and I hate to be again super basic about it, but it's revenue, making sure we're balancing, being forward-looking, thinking about what's next, how people are consuming with, how can we continue to monetize the brand and the show. Again, not because we want to make profit. That's not the motivation. The agenda is to generate more revenue so that we can push it back into the industry, back into the community. For us, it's about the health and uplifting of music.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was my other question. Broadcast television imposed a kind of discipline on TV production, whether it's we're going to have 30 minute sitcoms instead of like endless, you can look at your phone streaming shows, or whether it's, boy, this award show has gone on for a long time and it's. Time to wrap it up. There's a discipline that was imposed by the distribution. Streaming just doesn't have that. You really could have 10 Grammy Award shows a year. You could have an all day long Grammy Award show and show people highlights later. The compactness and the discipline of this is a show and it begins and ends that lends some tension to it. It lends some stakes to it. I know you're saying that's kind of open and you're thinking about it, but that seems important to preserve.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Last few years, even how we seat our artists, how we seat the music community, how we celebrate them, how we lift them, the tone. And we produce in a loving way. And I know that sounds crazy, but we produce in a way that brings people together, that tries to have camaraderie or collaboration between our community. And I think that means something to the viewers. So whether that means a three-hour show or three and a half hour show going forward or shorter versions or clips, we're going to be looking at all that and doing a lot of new things over the coming years.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thousand percent. We know consumers are changing the way they're consuming and their habits are evolving at all times. So we're always going to try and be on the cutting edge of that. But again, balancing that with making sure we're showcasing different genres of music. And it's not just all one genre. You're not just seeing only a certain group of creators and also making sure that we're honoring the tradition, the history of the brand. So that, along with trying to innovate, trying to make sure we're meeting viewers where they are and matching their habits with what we're creating or producing is something again. This stuff is not easy. None of it is straightforward. And if I were to have assumed the role or taken the reins of the organization and said we're going to do the same thing, we're just going to march straight ahead. We're going to keep making the same show. I think that would have been the easier route for sure, but we're not doing that. We're looking at everything, every part of our experience, every part of our show, every part of how we serve our members, how we produce the show. Maybe you've seen over the last...”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you think about moving to more internet native distribution, there's just a bunch of other stuff you can do. You can make it more interactive. You can cut up in different pieces. Is that stuff you're thinking about to reinvent the concept of an award show in that way?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are all trade offs to tell you the truth, and that's the balance. It's the juggle that we have to do. How do we reach the most consumers or viewers so that we can monetize the show, but also how do we showcase and lift artists so that most people see them? So it is a finely, it's a finely navigated line between those two things. And there's a lot of other considerations as well. The history of the branchine, accessibility, different territories around the world where there's a presence or a focus for us. So there were a lot of factors that went into the calculus of deciding where's the right home for us. So hopefully we feel like we made a good choice, but I guess we'll see in the next 10 years.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let me push on that just a little bit because there's a tension there. The biggest distribution you could have is YouTube. Everybody has it. Maybe you don't even have a choice to have it anymore. It's just there. YouTube is just there. Everybody has it. If you want the biggest reach for your award show, you would just put it on YouTube. It wouldn't give you as much revenue. It probably wouldn't give you as much brand halo versus Disney, which is Disney. Is that an actual trade-off you made? I could get more audience on YouTube, but I get more Brand Halo and perhaps revenue from Disney?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it all did. The heft, as you called it, was important and the gravitas behind the award and where it's consumed, how people are going to watch it, there's still something unique and special about network television to a lot of consumers, to other sets of consumers they really couldn't care less about that. So there is a balance or fine line that I wanted to make sure we walked with any partner that we joined forces with.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ferocious battles because people will tune into sports and they will make appointments to watch your service to watch us to watch sports. Awards shows are right up there in the mix. People will watch awards shows, but award shows need something a little different than sports. Like they need some prestige. They need some institutional heft. And it feels like, I don't know, putting the Grammys on YouTube is just not as fancy as being anywhere near ABC and Disney. Maybe even putting the Grammys on Netflix is not as fancy as being somewhere near Disney and ABC. Did that factor into your decision making?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talk to the CEOs of streaming platforms or other kinds of video platforms. The idea that the big catalog isn't as valuable as things that are live comes up over and over again. You can see it right now in the battles over how much to pay for sports rights.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This year. And then after the next show, we'll start to think about what this New Deal means. But up until then, you know your listeners and your viewers know consumption is changing, television is changing, digital streaming, even social media, how that all plays into how people are consuming content. Those are all things, as you can imagine, were top of mind when we started thinking about how are we going to move forward over the next 10 years.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've nailed it. We have to have the right TV partner, not only for the revenue, but also for the future of the brand and the health of the organization and for the good of the music community. What we do is to try and lift music and music creators. And how can we do that in the widest possible scale is something that I'm always thinking about. But as it relates to CBS and their streaming platform versus ABC Disney, I just have to say that CBS has been great. We're going to make two more shows with them. They had a lot of very, very positive aspects of why we've been with them and why we might have considered to go forward. But we also had to look at the future of consumption. We have to look at the future of how people are going to absorb or take in our show. Where does it need to be seen? How does it need to be seen? These are all considerations that I've been having since I took this role four years ago. So I've got a couple more great shows to go with CBS. Looking forward to February 2nd.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Disney's a little more, it's a very complicated. There's literally the plot of succession is embedded in me just mentioning Paramount. Disney obviously has Disney+. They've got Hulu. Was that what you were looking at? Like this is better distribution to a younger audience. It's more stable. This is the future of how people are going to watch TV. Because it does sound like I need to make a lucrative TV show is the heart of everything your organization does.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think about the value that CBS brought over that sweep of 50 plus years, they are one of the three big broadcast networks in the United States, the Tiffany network. They actually broadcast in slightly higher quality than some of the other networks, which I always appreciate about CBS, but they had a distribution monopoly. They were just a nationally broadcast TV network that came into everyone's homes. They were on every cable system. That's how TV used to work. That is broken, right? Chord cutting is all over the place. People aren't even using over their antennas anymore. That's just not how it works. And the big distribution isn't streaming. CBS does have some streaming in the mix, right? There's a whole complicated story to be told about Paramount and all that over there.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I will say we had other options. Probably won't go too much deeper than that, just out of respect for our partners on both sides. But CBS has been amazing to work with. And I also really look forward to seeing what's going to come next in our new partnership.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was really the decision making factor. I wanted to know what our options were and make sure that we were exploring all possibilities. You know, I'm in this role temporarily for however long I'm here, but I'm really a fiduciary and I'm a steward of the brand. And I think it's an institution that needs to be protected. It's a not-for-profit. We're not doing this other than to serve music people. So the idea was, how can we reach the best deal? How can we find the partner that most aligns with the future vision of the organization? It was an opportunity to explore the market. I thought that only made sense, even with the 54-year history that we had with CVS again, being great partners. I think anyone would say if you have the opportunity to see what else is there, you should take a look and try and find that right alignment going forward.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had to decide though, right? You come onto the job, you know you're renegotiating four years, deals up, you got to stick with CBS, or you got to go find a new partner. After 50 years, it feels like maybe the default was to say to CBS and the first decision was to say, actually, I'm going to open this up. How did you come to that just moment where you thought I've got to make sure I know what my options are?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I came into this role, I realized that we had four years until there would be a renegotiation. And I really had a vision and a plan for where I thought the academy needed to go. And partially that's why they have me in this role is to come figure out what that vision is and make sure we're executing on it, aligning with the board of trustees and our executive leadership on the executive committee. We know what has to happen. And the idea behind who is going to be our partner to help us get there was a big part of that decision making process. And we met with several people and ultimately ended up going with a different partner because of the fact that it really aligned with our future vision and where we wanted to go and how we wanted to continue to build and grow in the organization, but more importantly, how we could serve more people and execute in our mission in a broader, wider, deeper scale. So we're really excited about the”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely see change, transformational turning point in our organization. It was a very difficult decision to be honest because CBS has been a great partner. They've done amazing work with us, I believe, for 54 shows.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'll come to that though. Let me put that into practice. This week you announced that you're going to leave CBS. You're going to take the Grammys to Disney and stream across Disney Plus, Hulu, and ABC. said it already. CBS represents almost 100% of the revenue of the organization. You've been on CBS for 50 years? That's a big change. That's a big decision to go to a new partner and to new platforms and new distribution. Why make that decision and how did you make it?”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I think is right. It's almost like making music to tell you the truth. I was a songwriter and producer for years. And if you're making music for everybody else and you're trying to guess what's next and you're trying to make people happy, you're going to make the same music that everyone else is making. But if you're making music that turns you on, that excites you, that you love as a creator, and you come out as long as your tastes are aligned with the consumers, you'll win. So I feel the same way in the way I like to run our organization. A lot of listening, a lot of collaborating, and then trying to make smart, swift, thoughtful decisions.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I spend a lot of time listening, to be honest, and I'm not sure what the answer is for some of your other people that you've interviewed or other CEOs. But I don't pretend to know more than I know. I'm a lifetime learner, not a knower. And so when it comes time for decision, I tend to move relatively quickly. I don't sit and stew. I think perfection sometimes can get in the way of making progress. So I'll listen. I'll assemble my team. I'll get the information that I need to make an educated and strategic decision. And then I'll weigh it. And to this point, my instincts and my finger has been on the pulse of what our organization wants or needs and our members seem to be resonating with the decisions that have been happening. But if my personal taste or feelings fall out of favor with that, then it would really change my decision-making process because a lot of what I do is gather the information and decide from here.”
2024-11-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Why the Grammys need to change, with CEO Harvey Mason Jr. · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT