A scene between a popular comedian and podcaster, Leonard Lipschitz III, who has made all his money getting a piece of “the door” (which means a percentage of the tickets sold) and an old friend, Howard Dullman, COO of the Daily Randos.
[The twosome are sitting at a bar over drinks].
Lipshitz: I’m dying here I need to come up with some gimmick to get some attention. Get them talking and I have an idea.
Dullman: OK, what’s it got to do with me?
Lipshitz: You’ll love it. I’m going to do a video presentation complaining that I get no respect and I’m going to threaten to quit my podcasting gigs because of it. It involves you.
Dullman: Sounds interesting. Go on.
Lipshitz: Here is the scenario. Your podcasting network, the Daily Randos, have offered me a deal. Not any deal, but a $50 million dollar deal. And it offended me to the core. I’m going to whine about it incessantly and threaten to quit the business. It upset me sooo much. I’m only going to hint that it’s the Daily Randos doing this. I’ll use some bullshit reason not to say who it was -- to get attention.
Dullman: I like it, but you do know that our total revenues, not profits, is around $100 million. It seems ludicrous that we are offering half of one year revenues to you, long term or not. People would notice immediately.
Lipshitz: No, they would not. The public today does not pay attention to anything. Tell them you’ll add another 50 million and they cannot do the math.
Dullman: You might be right, so I can push it to the hundred million too. We’d offer to pay you 50 million but add 50 million in promotions which will make us look like a powerhouse. We have to make sure it doesn’t offend some of the commentators we already pay good money to. We have to either clue them in to this publicity stunt or tell them this was never serious. The problem with taking this seriously is that they know and we know and everyone knows the advertising side of the business is soft and getting softer.
Lipshitz: No problem. So I come out and moan and groan and show the contract and grumble about how you are trying to screw me. Then you come out with a video shortly thereafter and run through how you were not trying to screw me at all. You sit there perfectly groomed in HD with a virtual set behind you showing an efficient office humming in the background -- you being all reasonable, sensible -- like you actually have 100 million to throw at me and everyone else who comes through the door.
Dullman: Nice, I already have the “virtual set” in mind. I use it all the time when working at home on Zoom. And I'll do a two camera shoot!
---to be continued— | 
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