TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide

Maury Povich Meets The YouTube Era

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We sit down with Maury Povich to unpack how a daytime TV career built on real human reactions turns into evergreen YouTube success. We dig into virality, AI, the decline of over-the-air broadcast, and the surprisingly simple psychology that makes people share clips with friends.
• why Maury leans into YouTube after legacy TV success
• how the paternity envelope reveal stays authentic by not knowing results
• the Shakespeare themes that make drama timeless and clippable
• the wildest paternity outcomes and the funniest lie detector excuse
• what phones and independent creators change about news and entertainment
• why broadcast television feels outdated compared with streamers
• collaboration, audience overlap, and how to grow subscribers over time
• AI optimism for health and concern about misinformation and deepfakes
• why people share videos and how emotion drives the algorithm
• streaming revenue, content libraries, and why evergreen repeats keep winning
If you're new here, hit that subscribe button.


Shakespeare Themes And TV’s Decline

SPEAKER_00

The reason why my show was a success for all those years, we played into the classic Shakespearean themes. Conflict, drama, greed, betrayal, lust. Over-the-air broadcast television. It's it's on its last legs. I think it's gonna be archaic. 10% of all the kids in the country are with the wrong birth mom. I mean, it's part of the American fabric.

A Legend Joins The Podcast

SPEAKER_01

Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that has me as not your father, but you are the content creator. I'm Travis, and I'm here with an incredible guest today, an absolute legend. My guest today has been on television for over 60 years. He pioneered tabloid TV with a current affair. He hosted his own television show for over 31 seasons, over 5,000 episodes, won an Academy Award, and in 2023 picked up the Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the most replayed catch phase in daytime history. He is the original viral creator, the one and only Maury Povich. Welcome, Mori.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Travis, thank you so much. I don't think I've ever had an intro like that.

SPEAKER_01

You deserve it. You are literally a legend of broadcast television. Thank you so much for joining us today. No, thank you. I I'm honored to be here because you're you're the guru in what I'm trying to do right now. I can't wait to talk about it. You being on YouTube, I think it's so interesting. Uh, I have so many questions for you, and I I just I don't even know where to dive in. Um, I guess we'll we'll I definitely want to go through your broadcast history just because I find it interesting. But I am gonna ask the question that was on my mind when this whole thing came

Why Maury Chooses YouTube Now

SPEAKER_01

together. Why YouTube? Why are you doing YouTube?

SPEAKER_00

You've done everything. Well, you know, it's interesting. I it's not like I'm new to YouTube because the show, the Mari show, has over two million subscribers to YouTube. It has its own channel, and uh and it's great. Uh and and so therefore the show continues to be kind of live uh even though I haven't done the original episodes now for the last four years. Yeah. And uh and it's also uh repeating on legacy television, and uh those ratings are about as high as they were when the the originals came out. So uh you know, it's it's it's just for me, it's it's a gift that keeps on giving. But now, you know, it it's interesting. I I had a whole career for like 30 years before I ever got into the talk show business. And so my wife was always saying, you know, people don't know exactly how this all came about, and the fact that you were in the news, television news business for all these years, and and and all they think of you is the guy who's going to determine the paternity of every kid in America.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, but you couldn't, I mean, who would have known during these years that like that would be something that would uh live beyond the show itself? Like it is part of the the fabric of television for America, and it's something that uh even to this day is still known and memed and everything. Um talk to us about what that's like. I mean, I can't imagine you can't you can go anywhere, even a grocery store without someone saying you're not the father. So I mean, that's gotta be annoying. It's gotta be.

SPEAKER_00

Believe it or not, I mean, I I I kind of uh I'm gracious about the attention because you know, if you're on television, daytime TV every day for over 30 years, and you walk in and nobody knows who you are. Wow, I mean, what the heck was that all about? And so I take a lot of selfies, uh, particularly with guys who say, Look, Murray, please do this selfie. You are not, I am not, Jeff, I am not the father, you know, things like that. Yeah. I used to walk in in Manhattan in and hard hats during construction days, and they would go, Hey, Murray, you know, I am not the father, Murray.

SPEAKER_01

What's this what's speaking of that? Like, what's the strangest place a stranger's ever said something like that to you that you can think

The Secret Behind The Envelope Reveal

SPEAKER_01

of?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's it's you know, it's it's what's interesting is is the whole inflection of the uh iconic phrase, you are the father, you are not the father. It came about because the first time I ever did a show with paternity, and uh I knew the story, and the producer is briefing me right before the show, and they're saying, and you know, Mari, and the result, I said, uh I don't want to know the result. If I know the result, that means I know more than the guests, I know more than the studio audience, I know more than the audience at home. I I want to be an extension of everyone so that I could ask the same questions anybody would ask in this storyline. So I don't want to know the answer. So for all those years that we did paternity and lie detector tests, I never knew the answer. So I was as surprised as anybody when the result came about.

SPEAKER_01

I love that that was so true because there's so much production behind television shows, and they typically want to make sure that they can make as many things work as possible, humanly possible on TV, but I feel like genuine reactions are the best television that's

Daytime Talk Sparked Reality TV

SPEAKER_01

available out there. Like being genuine. No question.

SPEAKER_00

And the other thing about it is if if people went back and remembered, if they're old enough, all the daytime talk shows of the 1990s and early 2000s, I mean, there were 20 of us in daytime TV. It was the golden age of daytime talk. And I can tell you, I firmly believe that the whole thread of the Kardashians, of uh uh of uh all of the housewives uh shows, that entire franchise, uh the Jersey Shore shows, all of that, all of that came about because of the daytime reality shows of the 90s and early 2000s.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's like the first real reality shows that uh that ever hit the waves and and became became interesting to everyone. Of course, this is why it works on YouTube, because that's not that's an evergreen kind of thing.

Twins With Two Fathers And Wild Lies

SPEAKER_01

What was one uh of all the envelopes that you ever opened? Can you remember one that really like broke your brain? Like as you opened, like, what is happening?

SPEAKER_00

Like, what is there was one time where it was just uh I just I didn't believe it. Uh a woman came on to accuse uh a fellow of being the father of her twins.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And as I said, I opened up the envelope not knowing the answer. And this guy ends up being the father of one, but not the other. And I looked around on air and I said, Wait, what does this happen? And uh the producer says, fraternal twins. If the young lady is fairly active at a certain time of the month, uh these things can happen. Then the doctors say it's a million to one shot, and it came about on my show twice. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01

I've never even heard of such a thing. Um of the things that most people who maybe didn't see it live is the show was such a spectacle. Like there were so many crazy things going on. And of course, you had people that were like attacking it. But I think one time you mentioned something about that like 10% of American kids were raised by the wrong father. So talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_00

New York Times, it was it wasn't my statistic. The New York Times Sunday magazine, about I don't know, maybe close to 10 years ago, did a survey and found out that 10% of all the kids in the country are with the wrong birth father. That's crazy. That's insane. Which when which I explain all the time when they say, oh, this, this, you know, this really can't happen. I said, Are you kidding me? I mean, it's part of the American fabric. Yeah, it totally is.

SPEAKER_01

Um, what was the dumbest thing? So the other thing that you did I loved with the lie detector tests. I mean, I don't know why people think that they could beat these things. What was like the dumbest lie someone tried to get away with?

SPEAKER_00

You know, it it's very few occasions on the show when I absolutely lost it in terms of just laughing my head off. Uh this guy came on and his significant other was saying, he's cheating on me because on three occasions he just disappeared for three days at a time. And this guy says, I have I have the perfect answer. I'm telling you right now, dear, what happened was I was kidnapped and held in the trunk of a car on three different occasions for three days.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm looking at the guy, I'm laughing, I'm laughing, just like when I think of it, I'm just this guy tried to sell that on the show. And and I I just couldn't, I just couldn't even go on. I I I I said, you gotta be kidding me. Three times you were held in the trunk of a car. Okay. And you and she's trying to believe this, right? But of course, the lie detector test found out that he was lying.

SPEAKER_01

What were the I mean, the producers must have because you didn't know that going into it, right?

SPEAKER_00

Like no, I had no idea. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01

Did your producers know in advance you were gonna love that? Like they picked up a purple.

SPEAKER_00

I had no idea that that was his excuse for being away from her for on three occasions for three days at a time.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh. Um, so reality TV, social media, you're like, you've done a bun, a bunch of things over the course of the decades. Right. Um, right now, who do you think is doing it the best that you've seen? In terms of what? Like in terms of what you used to do, kind of making what was viral content before there was viral content. What type of people are you seeing in the industry do you're doing podcasts and talking and that sort of thing that you're like, wow, that's they're doing it really well.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, it it's different. I uh you know the guy who goes on the subway and uh Kareem goes on the subway and uh talks to everybody, and now he's doing it with taxi cab drivers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he's very, very he came. Uh I did an interview with him for Interview Magazine. I had a lot of fun. Boy, he's a very smart dude. And I'll tell you, he uh I'm very impressed with how he does

Phones Changed Media For Everyone

SPEAKER_00

his show.

SPEAKER_01

What do you think about how um because of technology and because I'm holding up my phone for the audio podcast listeners, this has changed broadcast. This has made everyone uh have a possibility of having their own quote show. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I you know, I think it's great because uh the population doesn't have to rely on three or four people uh for getting their information. And so therefore, uh I I, for instance, have interviewed several of these independent news people digitally that have some of them used to be on legacy TV, and then they like Don Lemon, who started his own. I've had Don Lemon on the podcast. Don Lemon, I had him on my podcast, it was like 200,000 views, and I go, wow, yeah, I had no idea he he was he he had he had that kind of an audience and that kind of a viewership. And so uh Aaron Parness is another guy uh who I had on my podcast. I I mean these they've taken it to a new level. Yeah. Now, a lot of us, as old as I am, you know, still might prefer to get their news from the from the New York Times or the Washington Post or something like that. But yeah, I mean, I I just uh I'm just amazed at uh at not only the fact that they do it so well, but their viewership is so wide.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Because it's now it's it's not just um like big across America, it's like worldwide because the internet allows you to be anywhere, everywhere, all the

Over The Air TV On Last Legs

SPEAKER_01

time. Uh what what do you think um the I mean I mean it's hard to say because just six months ago things are different than they are now, which we'll talk about like AI and stuff, but like what do you think the future of broadcast is? Is does television does it is it changing fast in a broadcast television? Is it changing fast enough with the times, do you think?

SPEAKER_00

No. I I think it's gonna be archaic. I I really do. And I think you can uh you can tell that, for instance, in the in the Paramount deal for Warner Brothers. I mean they're they weren't they weren't interested in uh they were interested in those streamers. That's what they were interested in. They weren't interested in any kind of legacy television that that Warner Brothers might have had. Uh uh maybe maybe they want you know with CNN and CBS News now, I mean that's gonna be com combined. Uh so therefore it's gonna be one outlet, not the two that exist now. Uh and and so uh I I think over-the-air broadcast television, it's it's on its last legs.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. I mean, that's that's big, I mean, that's big news. What do you think about so you had a lot of contemporaries?

Rivalries Then Collaboration Now

SPEAKER_01

Um during the daytime television wars, as we used to call them back in the day, right? Where like everyone was fighting and scrapping. Were you guys were you friendly with each other, or was it really like a rivalry of like, oh, I know, I need these extra points?

SPEAKER_00

I I think we had some I think we had some mutual respect for each other, but at the same time we were trying to steal each other's guests. Yeah, of course. I mean, when when we I mean, we would it was so competitive. We would see every 15-minute segment on each show. And if one person had gotten a huge rating in that segment, we said, well, we gotta do that. I mean, we gotta find it, we've gotta find that particular theme. We gotta do this. I do remember it was so funny and so ironic that when Phil Donahue's 25th anniversary came about, and NBC gave him a primetime special. And Phil invited all of us, all the competitors, about 10 of us, to do a skit on this big primetime special. And I'll never, I mean, we were all there, Oprah and Geraldo and Sally Chessy and uh uh uh Montel Williams and oh, everybody, Jenny Jones, all of us. And we're all going into the green room. Now we got about nine or ten daytime talk show hosts, and there was absolute silence. I mean, our egos were so big, and we so thought of ourselves so much we couldn't even talk to each other.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. But and funny because in YouTube it's kind of it in some niches, it's similar, but for the most part, collaboration is very popular on YouTube. Yeah, is that something that you enjoy?

SPEAKER_00

I'll ask you because you're the guru in this. Uh I have been told that if I get on my podcast someone who has a huge viewership, sure, then we can collaborate with each other, and therefore I can get more views. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, that is true. And um, think of it like this. Uh, I like to talk about it uh from the psychological standpoint. If you have, like, for example, Ricky Lake on on your show, which you have, you've had Ricky Lake on your podcast, um, there is what I would call a Venn diagram of audience. So there's people who love Maury, people who love uh Ricky, and then there's a people who love both, right? So the people who were maybe following Ricky but didn't know Maury had a podcast now are now like, oh, well, shoot, now I can subscribe to this channel, I can watch this stuff. I didn't know anything about it. So you are gaining that that middle Venn diagram of uh viewership that you maybe didn't have before.

SPEAKER_00

I had Ricky on, and then and then I would which you know, unfortunately, watch the comments and oh, we need to talk about that. A lot of people comments. Do you like that or not? I can't tell you how many people say Mari has a podcast. I thought he was dead. Oh maybe they're confusing me with Jerry Springer, but I mean they really thought, you know, and and also they go, he's 87 years old. Boy, he looks the same as he did on the show.

SPEAKER_01

You do you look younger than me. I'm not gonna lie. I don't think I'm gonna look as good as you do when I'm your

AI Fear And AI Hope

SPEAKER_01

age, I'll tell you. Um, talk about AI. What do you what are your thoughts about AI? Because it's very it's it's impactful on content creation, impactful in on the economy too. But what are your thoughts on AI in general?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I I think I gotta break it down. I'm fearful and I'm also ecstatic. I'm fearful because of is it gonna be like Wikipedia? Because I'm telling you right now, if I go into my rick Wikipedia uh page, there are about four things that are dead wrong. Oh, they're just they just don't exist, okay? Now, if if AI gets it right, that's fine, but I'm I'm worried about that. On the other hand, my son-in-law is a terrific oncologist and doctor, and he tells me everybody's gonna live to 100 because of AI and medicine. And so I'm a I'm ecstatic about that. The fact that uh AI is gonna be so beneficial when it comes to our health. Have you used it much yourself personally? I do a little bit of chat GBT, that's all. Um a little bit. What do you ask? Now I see where they're beginning to charge me. Yeah, you know, like what do you typically ask like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. What do you typically use AI for like in your day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I I I look at I I do it the way I would do Google. Oh, okay. When I'm trying to look up things. And so and and and you know what's fun is if you compare what the AI answer is versus the Google answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

AI is so interesting. I've actually um, because you know, you bring up.

SPEAKER_00

What do you think it's gonna do for YouTube?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, it's already started changing YouTube in a lot of significant ways. There's the thumbnail generator, so it does thumbnails by itself. Now it's making realistic looking video, which I've seen like clips of uh of you that are AI generated. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. Remember with the Bill Bella chick line with the uh that that thing went viral. Yeah, yeah. And and I must say, the guy's voice was pretty close.

SPEAKER_01

It's crazy, right? Yeah, is that in some way scary, or do you just marvel at at the technology? Well, I kind of marvel at it so far. Yeah, so far. That's true,

Building Viral Moments With Drama

SPEAKER_01

that's true. Um, so in as far as YouTube goes, like most content creators today, they're trying to create the clippable moment, the viral moment, right? Yeah, but you were doing these when the virality didn't really exist. Sure. Um, you seem to understand human attention and kind of the things that will trigger what what we talk about is the YouTube algorithm. What are the the some of the main things about a moment that can live forever? Like what are the the aspects of it that you've noticed over the years?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'll tell you, it's it's it goes back to uh the reason why my show was a success for all those years. I always said that the reason why uh it was a successful is that we played into the classic Shakespearean themes conflict, drama, greed, uh, betrayal, lust. And so, therefore, if you can use those themes in a two-minute clip, you you've got you've got something that might go viral.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's amazing. That's I I never thought of it that way. It's um so did you guys like sit down in um in meetings beforehand, like when you're doing pitch meetings and stuff and and kind of go over that? Is that is that how that worked?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, the the those themes were were so important to us because we knew that's what the viewer wanted. That's what the viewer wants in the Kardashians, that's what they want in the Housewives franchise. It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_01

Um, if the let's let's let's uh let's

Turning Viewers Into A Live Audience

SPEAKER_01

try something here. Let's say 26-year-old Maury is uh out there about to, he's like, listen, I need to be a part of the the social media uh ecosystem. Would you be uh would he be on YouTube instead of TV? And if so, like what would his channel be?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'll tell you, I think uh I think my show would work on YouTube, right? 100% it would. 100%.

SPEAKER_01

Don't you think? 100% it would. But is there logistics that would be make it a little bit more difficult, do you think?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I think you just set up your own studio. The only difference would be uh you know what I would do? I would invite on a live situation, I would invite the viewers who were watching live to be part of the show.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. That okay, so like you I I think one of the things that made your show interesting also was the live audience. So in a lot of ways, it was like live streaming before live streaming was a thing. Uh how much of that was part of um you know the the thought process behind a particular episode, like, oh, this is going to pop the audience, or this is gonna be, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, we could basically determine with the reaction of the live audience, and we're talking, I don't know, 150, 200 people in our live audiences, uh, their reaction to a particular episode. And so, therefore, if they reacted in a you know, they they always boo this or or or or clap about that or or uh approve of things or disapprove of things, we would take that on to the next episode of something and we would realize how the audience reacted before and try to get that same reaction.

Curiosity After A Lifetime On TV

SPEAKER_00

I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you did so much network TV and and you know, I think at some point a lot of people like to retire. Like they want they've done their work. You've literally like accomplished everything in broadcast. I don't even know what you would else want to do. Why do you feel it's necessary? I shouldn't say necessary. Why do you want to do YouTube? Why do you want to specifically continue on?

SPEAKER_00

I I don't know if it's uh for for my prospective audience or for me personally. Uh you know, I I've been in some part of this business since I was 16 years old. And so uh I I mean, even though I stopped, I I I thought my one of my great heroes was Johnny Carson. I just thought he was terrific. And I also liked the way he went out because he never appeared on TV again after he left his show, left the tonight show, and I said, I want to be like Carson. Boy, did that not work out. I don't know. I just couldn't sit around. I I I felt that I've been a storyteller forever. I I still wanted to be a storyteller. Uh and and even though most people know me from the talk show and those particular themes, uh, I am so curious. And I think curiosity has just taken over my life.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's fantastic. This is the uh in a in the the realm of human history, there is so much information you can you can get very quickly. Like before, uh even in the 90s and stuff, uh, if you had a question or something, you might go to the library or you know, go to school for it. Or now you just pick up your phone and in two seconds you could be the most educated person on the subject. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And it's and it's you know, and it's made everybody a lot smarter, I think. Yeah. And and you know, people uh people uh you know say about kids, you know, should they be on social media, shouldn't they be on social media? I don't know. I I I always feel that it's it's a great learning tool.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it it's also you you can learn what to do and what not to do. And so therefore, if you're smart enough as a kid, uh it can be very uh beneficial.

Growing A Channel When You Are The Niche

SPEAKER_00

But at the same time, I uh you know, I I want to ask you because for instance, I'm growing my YouTube audience incrementally, sure.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And you know, I'm a TV guy, and yeah, when you you're in TV, you want immediate results.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So uh how do I go from incremental and it's growing every week? Sure. Uh for instance, uh I have uh Jess Hilarious on uh this week. You know, it's the first two, three days of and and it's going terrifically. I mean, I think maybe we're around 50,000 views by Wednesday, and we just started on Monday. So this will be in triple figures. Yeah, but how do I get the subscriber list out of the incremental uh position into a big into a big response?

SPEAKER_01

I love that like Maury Povich is asking me my advice on something. I think this is amazing. You know a lot more about YouTube. I know a lot about this because I'm a nerd.

SPEAKER_00

I I want to tell you, my show, I mean, I'm I'm a very lucky person. I I I get money from the YouTube channel. That's amazing. Okay. That's phenomenal. And it's it's the gift that keeps on giving. It really does.

SPEAKER_01

Now, how do I do it? How do you do it? I think the interesting thing is, first of all, um unlike what you have already what most content creators want, which is you can be the niche. So most times we tell people you have to niche down, you have to find a niche that you're good at and kind of do that thing. And for the most part, most content creators are trying to find a big topic that they are that they can uh talk about and then be as interesting in that topic as possible. I mean, in this particular instance, on par with Mori Povich, you are the niche, which is kind of you are the father, you are the niche, right? Um which is unique. Um, but there is an entire audience of people who don't know who you are, or at the very least, they've seen some of your clips, but don't know that you do all this other stuff. So what you need to do, and what I think you're already doing, and it just takes time because YouTube takes time to kind of grow on, uh, is find the the pulse of um of that age group that you can connect with. And is it the super young group? Maybe it could be if you're if you're willing to do crazy stuff, or maybe it's people like me who didn't know that you had a YouTube channel until very recently. And it's like, oh, okay, there are people who've known and loved Maury for decades that have no idea you have a podcast. And like that's something that people of my age, even younger, still podcasting is huge. It's a huge thing to get into. It's just a matter of time. Um, and what you're doing, you have a lot of different great guests, like you were saying, Adam Freelin, you have um you had uh Ricky Lake on recently, you have a bunch of really interesting stories, but you also have stories yourself that you could tell that are, I'm sure, incredibly interesting that we'll never know.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I'll tell you. Uh uh Tony Kornheiser has been doing a podcast for a long time. He's uh the guy from pardon the interruption.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

The the only advice he took, the really good advice he told me is that people want to know about you. Yes. People want to know about your experiences, people want to know about what you think, people want to know about your personal life, people want to know about your experiences. True.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I I Moria, I think in this case, uh, not only is he be very accurate, I think for you specifically, it's super accurate because there are you have been the interviewer for so much of your life that we don't know a lot about you. Like we kind of know you, but we don't know a lot about you. And it would be interesting to hear what your take is on some of this stuff. And I think you probably do some of that on your podcast. But in general, when you're on TV, when you've been doing broadcast television, sometimes the smartest thing is to not have a super strong opinion because you don't want to alienate your audience. On YouTube, little different. A hot take is a good take, a hot take is a viral take.

SPEAKER_00

Like, you know, that's what so and what you're saying is uh uh for instance, I I grew up in a home that you never talked about religion, yeah, you never talked about politics, right? You never talked about money. Exactly. That's the kind of home I grew up in. And when you grew up in the 40s and 50s, that's the way it was. Yeah. And now it's fair game for anybody. It really, truly is. Yeah. What has your experience been for? So I should. So you're saying that I should be talking about all those personal things that nobody knows about that even I didn't talk about. I was growing up.

SPEAKER_01

How about this, Maury?

Getting Fired And Surviving Failure

SPEAKER_01

Tell us something about you personally that you love that most people don't know. Like, tell me something now.

SPEAKER_00

I'll tell you what this is something I always think about the difference between success and failure, okay, and my own personal success and failure. One of the things in television that was the most fearful thing in the world, if you're in television, was to get fired. Yeah. And so you tried all your life to avoid that. Somehow you had to avoid it. And so it came a time in my life where I got fired. And so I figured out once I was fired, it wasn't the act of getting fired that was so fearful. It was how you were going to feel when it happened. Because that was the the all it's not the act that you were scared of. It's you didn't know how you were going to feel when it happened. Is was this was this a death knell? I mean, was it over? Did you have to get out of the business? And so I found out that when I was fired, I uh lay down on my couch for about three two or three weeks. I got fired in Los Angeles at a job. And uh I'm watching TV and I'm saying, you know, I think I'm just as good as these guys. I mean, I I think I'm I think I'm as good in this business as they are. Um and and I've got all my digits, nothing happened, you know. I'm I'm here. And so within about a month, I got a job in San Francisco. So uh everybody goes through this in their lives, the feeling of failure. And so, therefore, I really believe it's not the act that that that you should be worried about. It's how you're gonna feel because it's never happened to you before.

SPEAKER_01

That's so true. It's about a lot of things, like uh even getting a medical procedure, same thing. Like uh, yeah, any of that stuff. It's like the human the human experience is kind of what you're describing.

SPEAKER_00

So I'm trying to weave that kind of stuff into the podcast. And what you're saying is that's the way to go.

SPEAKER_01

I think

The Psychology Of Why People Share

SPEAKER_01

so. I let's talk about virality for a minute on YouTube. So um, one of the top ways that um uh content goes viral is sharing, right? So you and you've seen this before, like someone will send you a little clip of something and you know you think it's funny. But I think, and I was just talking about this uh to your producer before you came on. Uh, we were talking about this previously before you came on. Why are videos shared? And that's a human condition. Now I'll break it down for you. Um nine times think about the last video or clip or picture that you shared with someone, Maury. Can do you remember what it was?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I'm I uh we've been living in the summers in Montana for the last 20, 30 years, and I just shared a picture of a huge bear right out right outside my property. Now tell me, who did you send it to? Uh, I sent it to people who uh have been here before, yeah. Uh all personal friends, family, things like that.

SPEAKER_01

Now, I want you to think about when you were sharing it, why did you share it? Wow. Um I bet y'all, I bet you I'll be able to answer, but I wanted you to tell me.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's this is how I live in the summer. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

With with these kinds of neighbors. Right. Well, and one of the other reasons, and probably similarly, you felt a certain thing, felt a certain way when you saw that bear and you saw that picture, right? You wanted people to feel something or feel similar to you, and you wanted to get their feedback, right? Because that's why people typically share things. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. That's the that is viral. That is how something goes viral. I share a video to someone because it made me laugh. I want to see if they'll laugh. I want to make them laugh. I want to make their day. I've I share something that's inspirational because I want to feel inspired. I felt inspired, I want to inspire someone else. I saw something that really touched me. I want to see if this touches. That's why people share things. And that's why, like, you're all you were like the king of virality before virality came out because you had things that people wanted to have other people feel the same way that they felt when they saw your content. So that's like how virality works.

SPEAKER_00

So that's fascinating. So I should use that on my Instagram, on the uh on par with Mario Povich Instagram account.

SPEAKER_01

Anytime there's something that happens that makes someone feel a certain way, or someone viewing it would be like, wow, that's impactful, that's educational, that's exciting, that's whatever. That's what people share. And then, of course, that's how things go viral. Gotcha. Does that make sense? Perfectly. It's it's psychology, human psychology. Of course, with you, Travis, it's something I never thought about. Well, again, I'm I'm surrounded by this stuff. Uh, but uh yeah, I mean, in in my instance, I I I look into how humans react to things, and you for decades have been surrounded by humans reacting to things and then produced it for television. And now on YouTube with uh on par with Omari Povich, you are now able to and the thing is you people want to talk to you, so you can get some of the most interesting guests and most interesting people

Reading Comments And Feeling The Impact

SPEAKER_01

anytime. Well, I it's a it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

I uh I I guess it's kind of new to me because when I was doing the show, I never looked at the YouTube comments, yeah, for instance, yeah, when there were clips.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But now I'm looking at the comments and uh a lot of them are. I didn't know Mari had a podcast. Right. That's you know, there's there's all of that. I didn't know Mari looks looks the same he did when he did the talk show. I didn't know that, you know, and and then there are a lot of uh fire icons and a lot of clapping icons and things like that. And yeah, I just or if it's my guest, I love these two together and things like that. I get a big kick out of that. I was gonna ask you.

SPEAKER_01

Look, that's that's what did that's what's different between broadcast television, which you have your audience. So you're in a unique situation where you actually had an audience too, but they were a captive audience of people who already loved your stuff. YouTube can go out to anybody, and that can be good or bad, but it makes a feedback loop that you didn't have in broadcast television. Talk to us about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, it's it's it it's it's really something. I get a lot of I get a lot of comments, for instance, of my man stayed home from school to watch it, pretended to be sick, you know. I faked out my parents, things like that, all those things. I mean, it's just I'm just overwhelmed by that stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, but you went to you went to work every day in front of a camera and you know, an audience, and you just kind of did it again and did it again and did it again, but didn't realize that like I know you probably saw the numbers. Like over the years, they're probably telling you, okay, you hit this many million, there are this many tens of million over the year. But until you start seeing like how that impacted people on a day-to-day, it probably has lost you somewhat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it did. I mean, uh, you know, I was so uh I was so categorized into just this television thing. Yeah, I never saw the expansion that occurred over those 30 years.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I started uh in 1991, I left in 2022 and and never thought about this whole other field of viral viral, whatever you want to call it. Virality, yeah, yeah. Virality or the algorithm. Even though I knew for uh the show has six and a half million views on viewers on uh Facebook, yeah, and we have three million viewers on TikTok, and I just I just looked at I looked at it at the time as just um an associate, you know. My idea was I'm doing the show, right?

SPEAKER_01

I'm doing the show. But I think it's hard to understand what those numbers even mean. Like, so for example, like you were talking about, the Maury show on YouTube, uh, while it has um 200 uh sorry, two million subscribers, it has 955 million views. Uh, and that's just on YouTube. That doesn't include anything else. So we're talking billions of views, which is a number that you can't wrap your head around. Because if I were to say to Maury, hey, you know, you're gonna go an arena and do a show in front of 20,000 people, you're probably like, oh my gosh, like, oh, that's that's that's that's a lot, right? But that's what we kind of hope for on YouTube. Like I would love to get 20,000 views and like it's nothing, right? But we just forget about that sometimes. And you literally have billions, billions with a B of views, not just from the current uh digital stuff, but from people who've re-uploaded your stuff and in and like just across the world. Like that's hard to wrap your head around.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, yeah, I mean, I we used to do a show uh on phobias, and we had a woman who was scared, two one woman was scared of pickles, and one woman was scared of olives. Uh I I can't tell you tens of millions of views on YouTube of those clips.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's insane.

Streaming Revenue And The New TV Math

SPEAKER_01

Do you own um like the YouTube channel for the Murray Show? Do you own all that stuff?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I'll tell you a story I've never said before. Let's go. Uh when we were when I was negotiating my final contracts, I had I had a very small percentage of all streaming revenue. Uh whether it be and really the only two big uh revenue streamers are YouTube and Facebook. Those are the two. Uh TikTok you don't get any money for, Instagram you don't get any money for, although that might change. So uh the NBC people came to me and they said, We we got a problem, you know, we're not the the the show is still doing great, but we're not getting the kind of money from the stations that we used to get. So can you take uh a cut and pay? And I said, uh okay. I'll take this is the last four years of the of the contract. So this is from 2012 2018 to 2022. I said, okay, I'll take uh I'll I'll take a I got all I got a hundred people working for me. I've got I want to be able to take care of them. Yeah, but I want to increase dramatically my revenue from all streaming. That's smart.

SPEAKER_01

So I got lucky. Well, and back then, 2018, 29, you know, if if you were doing this contract around 2017, 2018, that was it was kind of like, oh yeah, streaming is a thing. I mean, it's almost a funny thing. I'm sure they signed it away, like, sure, you can have that. Okay, but now it's like you're a genius.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's uh NBC, for instance, has closed its syndication division. Wow. So therefore, this Wilco show ended, uh, Caramo show ended, uh, and they uh access Hollywood, they they're closing the division. Wow. But the library is huge. Yeah. In fact, I I I asked this head salesperson at NBC, I said, so how are the repeats going to go next year? He says, Well, it's amazing because all these shows are getting canceled or taken off the air. Sherry Shepard and this one and that one. Now are there all these time periods for the repeats? Yeah. So you're in pretty good shape. They're evergreen. I mean, you're it doesn't matter what you shocked. And the and the YouTube and Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, I mean, uh that's growing more than legacy television is.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, the the the thought that something so democratized, something that everyone can have access to, would make things bigger than what, you know, when I was growing up, broadcast television was it. Like you had to the chances of someone like me making it on broadcast television were practically zero. Like you had to have ins, you had to have connections, you had to do all the you had to go you pitch yourself. Now I could just pick up a phone, and if I have the right content, I can become a star and have a full-time job doing that.

SPEAKER_00

Adam Friedland used to tell me that why why he was so excited to meet me was because when he was a kid, he would watch every day, he would watch The Price is Right, then me, then Jerry, and then pardon the interruption.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I whenever I was home from school, it was you and Jerry. That was it. I didn't watch anything else. You and Jerry, you and Jerry. Um, real quick, uh, forget about the you know, the you are not the father

What Maury Wants To Be Remembered For

SPEAKER_01

clip. 50 years from now, what do you actually want uh the viral clip of you to be? Or what do you want to be remembered for?

SPEAKER_00

Believe it or not, it would be a rather personal uh clip. And that would be about me and my wife. Oh, because uh I'm married to Connie Chung, who's the legendary broadcaster. Another legend in the house, Crazy House. Yeah. Uh I think more than anything else, uh uh I I would want I would want everybody to remember me as Mr. Chung.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

And what does she think of all what you're doing here with the well she's glad I'm doing uh on par because uh she says it's a whole new uh way of you interviewing people without the themes of the Mari show. Yeah, and so I I'm very uh I'm I'm very happy to uh do what she says.

SPEAKER_01

Happy wife, happy life. Maury Povich, absolute legend. I I am so overwhelmed with joy to be able to do this episode with you. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. And there'll be links in the show notes that'll take you to On Par with Maury Povich. Also, if you're listening to the Audio Only podcast, I'm gonna link all this stuff. You have to go see it on the new show.

SPEAKER_00

Travis, I want to thank you because uh I've learned a lot. And that's crazy. And I hope my producer, who's listening to all this, isn't in what direction we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_01

Mori, I can't thank you enough. And while I do have more videos for other one, everyone to watch, there's nothing more interesting than being on a show with Mauripovich. I can't thank you enough, but I do have another video for you right here. We'll see y'all in the next one.