The Jay & Tony Show Show - Vertically Challenged

This week, Jay and Tony try (and immediately fail) to avoid talking about AI, accidentally invent a drinking game, and then dive headfirst into one of the biggest questions facing vertical dramas: what happens next? Is the industry evolving into premium TV made for your phone, or is it doubling down on dopamine-driven, paywall-powered storytelling? Along the way they debate why "hot priests" are s...

Kai and Federico stick around to explain how creators might actually make money when AI starts eating the old entertainment model for breakfast. They break down Anamana's creator incubator, revenue-sharing approach, and vision for a world where one person with a laptop can operate like a tiny, deranged studio. Jay and Tony push on the uncomfortable stuff too. What happens to actors? What happens t...

Jay and Tony sit down with Kai and Federico from Anamana, an AI-native storytelling platform trying to drag entertainment into its next weird and potentially awesome era. They talk AI-generated microdramas, fan fiction turning into real shows, creators building worlds without waiting for permission, and why Hollywood may be dramatically underestimating how fast this is all moving. It is part tech...

Jay returns from a microdrama conference in Mallorca, Spain with tales of Hollywood's fading influence. He and Tony get into the global vertical drama boom, America's fading grip on entertainment, AI demos that somehow still need a human to stand next to them and apologize, and a K-pop dance reenactment that Jay refused to do. Meanwhile, Tony does what Tony does best and turns a serious conversati...

Part 2 In Part 2, Jay and Tony venture with Tommy into the wonderfully unhinged business of vertical drama, because apparently producing billion-dollar franchises was not stressful enough. Tommy breaks down why he launched VU, what Hollywood veterans still do not understand about verticals, how budgets, marketing, influencers, AI, and audience behavior are reshaping the game, and why the next grea...

Jay and Tony sit down with Tommy Harper, a guy who somehow went from wrangling extras as a PA on  Showgirls  to producing  Top Gun: Maverick ,  Mission: Impossible ,  Star Trek ,  Wednesday , and basically half the movies that make the rest of us feel professionally inadequate.   In Part 1, Tommy walks through the accidental, slightly insane path from PA-ing alongside Hollywood legends to building...

Jay and Tony continue their conversation with Eddie Yoon as they dive into AI actors, infinity contracts, dead celebrity licensing, fake movie trailers, and the very real possibility that Hollywood may eventually decide physical reality is simply too expensive.   They debate whether AI actually democratizes creativity or just hands the keys to a new class of gatekeepers wearing Patagonia vests. Ed...

Jay ventured to the LA Vertical Market so Tony didn't have to.  From AI panic to talks on data-driven storytelling to debates over how to properly carry a woman out of a room, the guys unpack the weird, fascinating, slightly dystopian future of micro dramas.  Along the way, they get into China's production of tens of thousands of AI titles a month, the fact that comedy somehow still works, and a w...

  Jay and Tony sit down with AI researcher and media analyst Eddie Yoon to dissect the bizarre, thrilling, slightly cursed new era of AI-first creativity, where everyone is pretending there's a rulebook, but everyone's too scared to read it. They dig into why every AI short somehow looks like  Bridgerton got trapped in a perfume ad, the coming vertical drama land grab, algorithmic storytelling, an...

This week, Jay and Tony sit down with Dana Protsyshak to talk vertical drama—aka the industry where everyone thinks it's easy until they try it and get humbled immediately. They get into why Hollywood veterans struggle, why audiences say one thing but watch another, and whether the whole business model is genius or barely holding together. Plus: competing with big apps, why LA is too expensive, an...

In Part 2, Jay and Tony get into the bloodsport behind one of entertainment's fastest-growing categories. Bogdan breaks down why the market is already more saturated than people think, why most new entrants are dead on arrival, and what the biggest companies are really up against if they want to survive.   They also talk about the race for micro drama's first true prestige hit, why so many compani...

This week, Jay and Tony sit down with Bogdan Nesvit, co-founder and co-CEO of Holywater and My Drama, whose path to building a micro-drama heavyweight somehow includes post-Soviet Ukraine, Oxford, the UN, and a startup that blew up on the launchpad. Normal.   In Part 1, Bogdan gets into the failure that shaped him, the founder ego problem nobody likes admitting, and why he has worked hard not to m...

#134 - Emergency podcast. Ai has killed Chinese production hubs. The AIpocalsye is here.

Jay and Tony keep going with Evan Shapīro, and the conversation gets sharper, messier, and much more fun. Evan unloads on the collapse of gatekeepers, the rise of the creator economy, and the uncomfortable truth that audiences now have more power than the people who used to decide what got made, sold, and seen.   From savage media leadership critiques to the brutal math of engagement, platforms, a...

Jay and Tony sit down with a man known as the "media cartographer," Evan Shapīro, to unpack his now-iconic Media Universe Map and what it reveals about the modern entertainment ecosystem and those pretending the old playbook works. From his roots in theater and TV to helping launch culture-shifting hits like Portlandia , Evan brings serious receipts to a conversation about how audiences moved, pow...

In this episode, Jay and Tony dive into the latest chaos in the vertical micro-drama space, unpacking what creators, investors, and platforms are getting right… and where they're completely kidding themselves. From shifting audience expectations to the sprint for a paywall model that actually makes money, they break down why some projects pop while others vanish on impact. Along the way, they get...

Part 2 of the interview with Larry Namer and Anina Nett gets more inside the business math, the creative mechanics, and the uncomfortable question…  is the U.S. finally ready, or just finally desperate?   Larry lays out what it'll take for new U.S. platforms to survive, why the timing feels different now, and how Western models compare to the China-speed production engine. Jay and Tony push on wha...

Vertical micro-dramas are blowing up, and Jay and Tony are talking to two guests who have a view of the future from very different angles.   First up: Larry Namer, co-founder of E! Entertainment Television and certified media pioneer, with stories from the early chaos of cable, to how entertainment keeps reinventing itself, to why he's convinced vertical is the next big format shift. He digs into...

Jay and Tony share a checklist for what makes a paywall feel earned and what makes it feel like you just got mugged mid-scroll. They talk stakes that actually escalate, how viewer trust gets built, and explore other non-negotiables that must be in place before you ask anyone to pay for more.   Then the guys get painfully specific about the paywall moments that land instantly on a phone screen. The...

In this episode, Jay and Tony explore the secret sauce behind vertical micro-drama paywalls. They break down the "open loop" itch, the perfectly timed  wait, WHAT? , and why people will happily unlock more episodes just to get their nervous system back under warranty. If you've ever said,  "I'm not paying"  and then immediately paid, then this is surely an episode for you.   The guys dive deep int...

Jay and Tony go to City Hall… and accidentally catch democracy doing its weird little job.   They break down what exactly the LA City Council just passed and how it could help vertical micro-dramas with tax rebates, easier permits, and fewer hoops for indie creators. So yeah, this matters.   Then the episode digs into the pool-camera circus, the latest vertical hype, why "making it cinematic" migh...

Part 2 of Jay & Tony's chat with Isabel Drean gets brutally honest as she explains why so many award-winning writers faceplant in vertical while newcomers run laps around them. They break down the real mechanics of how cliffhangers actually work, why slow-burns collapse in this format, and how ego, elitism, and quiet contempt for female-driven audiences keep the industry stuck.   Then it gets real...

Jay and Tony sit down with screenwriter and vertical-storytelling juggernaut, Isabel Drean, to trace her weirdly perfect path from acting to entrepreneurship to writing hit scripts at record speed. Isabel breaks down why "tight boxes" (Christmas movies, vertical dramas, all of it) don't crush creativity, they  force  it to show up.   They get into why tropes aren't the villain, how the first five...

In this episode, Jay and Tony tear into their inbox and answer listener questions, from whether Quibi would still faceplant in 2026 to exactly how many vertical dramas they've actually watched for research. They argue about AI replacing actors, the real downside of the vertical gold rush, and whether filming your breakup in portrait mode counts as "content" or just a cry for help. Along the way th...

In the second part of their conversation with Kasey Esser, Jay and Tony shift from origin story to industry reality. Kasey breaks down how careers actually move forward in the vertical space, from agents and leverage to boundaries, sustainability, and long-term strategy. They talk candidly about what creators get wrong once momentum hits and how visibility can become a liability. Protect your hour...