Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150410

World of sports pases present and future with al michaels. His new book is called you cant make this stuff up miracles pemries and the perfect marriage of sports and television. I introduced myself to i dont know who he is he earned a baseball scholarship. I am there because i want to broadcast the games on the campus station. Were talking about our dreams. Were 17 years old. And ten years later he is the third baseman for the oakland as and i am doing the world series because im the announcer for the since nationalee reds at the time. One if your team won the pant join curt and johnny on fbc doing the world series. And i walked into the clubhouse when they got to cincinnati, the as did we looked at each other and we want what . Plepler and michaels when we continuement funding for charlie rose is provided by the following rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Richard plepler is here, he is the chairman ceo of hbo. He has green list such hit shows at true blood boardwalk empire and true detective. This sunday night through a series that began under his leadership returned with new seasons. Veep Silicon Valley and of course game of tloeferns. Hbo has also just released its stand alone treatmenting service. It is called hbonow. And ears a look at what it offers. So the hearts keep breaking and the heads just roll one two three theyre going to run back to me they always wants to come up they never want to leave my xs and os they haunt me. Now . Now . Say that word again. Now. Pleased to have rich plepler at this table for the first time. Richard plepler say good friend of mine and he has been supportive of this program. Tell me about the decision to stream and how you came to it and what are the implications and what does it is a about the future. Well, charlie we want hbo to be available quite simply in as many ways as possible for a vast part of our audience and potential audience. There are 10 million homes in the United States that only have broadband subscriptions. And previously before the introduction of hbo now this tuesday, those people were not able to get hbo. So we wanted to hope up open up the possibility expand our audience make hbo as accessible as possible. And thats what this streaming service does. Now right now its available on all apple devices cablevision has bundled it with its broadband subscription. And you know, there are a lot of millennials in the country who are not subscribing to came satellite or telco services. And we want to go after those young people and we think this is as weve said a millennial missile an opportunity to attract them to our service and then get them into the house. And we hope include them for many years to come. Rose did the Cable Companies fight you on this . Different responses from different partners. But you know our position is this is a winwin for everybody. Look, they have a lot of broadband only homes in their systems. So what were saying to them is join us grow with us as well. You have people inside your Cable Systems inside your telco systems without dont have video packages. Why not give them an opportunity to get hbo as well. So we think this is an expansion of the pie. We think its a win for the consumer. We think its a win for our partners, current partners and new partners. We want to build maximum flexibility into our model and that is why we develop this streaming service and thats why we introduced it this week. When someone asked to you stand up and make the comparison between hbo and netflix what do you tell them . I tell them that i think we have one of the great assemblages of content in the Entertainment Industry. We have 12700 hours of library in our 2700 hours of library in our ouvre if you will. We have some of the best content i think available anywhere for hollywood movie studios. Fox universal warner brothers, summit. So we think in addition to give giving people maximum opportunity to view our product on hbo go tethered to our current distributors and now hbonow with apple we think its a tremendous value a tremendous array of content. And if we continue to play our game as we are capable of playing it, work with the people without we want to work with we have the best talent in front of the camera, behind the camera who want to be inside the hbo family you you know we think hbo will stand up against anybody in the course. Here is what is interesting about you and everybody who knows you says it, you care deeply about programming. Programs. You watch them. You stimulate people to produce them. Youre not just simply managing assets. What you are doing is creating assets. Where does that come were . Well listen the history of our company and ive been at our company for over 22 years, is the history of becoming is being a place a magazine netted for talent. A magnet for storytellers. And my colleagues and i Mike Lombardo who is our programming president , who has done absolutely a masterful job along with his team were trying to do is become the best place continuing to be the best place for talent to do what they do best. And what happens is that becomes very infectious. So Marty Scorsese comes and does boardwalk empire and stays because he wants to do rock n roll. People come back. Tomorrow hanks has come back over and over again. We see this as a pattern because it is an extraordinary place to work. Not only do we support our talent creatively the way we market, the way we promote. I think the experience that creative people have inside hbo is second to none. Rose it used to be that big move yees didnt do television. Now they do television. Right right. Its a great great vehicle to tell stories. So if you are matthew mcconneghey and Woody Harrelson and you do true detective, you have an opportunity to play at the highest level of your game in doing a project like that. I think matthew mcconneghey is quoted as saying the best Oscar Campaign he had was true deckive on hbo leading up to the oscars. We agree. I want to talk about game of thrones, for example a show that i dont watch. You should. Rose what am i missing . Oh, i think youre missing epic storytelling. Youre missing great fun. Youre missing archetypes like power and war and conflict dealt with in remarkable ways by two brilliant writers and show runners in denney bennyhalf and dan weiss. When they pitched the show to mike and myself, one of the points they made was look, this is about power. And this is about old themes that have been present from the bible through greek tragedies through shakes shakespeare. And i think if you followed the show coming now into its new season you are going to see some of the most remarkable theyre like really ten hours ten separate movies. And people say why dont you do more. When you see the quality of the work and the intricacy of the work, i think you see why ten is an extraordinary achievement in and of itself. Rose heres the trailer for see son five of game of thrones. Dark highbrow they are all just spokes on a wheel. Each one is you know and on and on it spins. Crushing those on the ground. Im to the going to stop the wheel. Im going to break the wheel. An army of castle black. He means to take the north. This is the time. And i will risk everything. Winter is coming. We knows whats coming with it. We can learn to live with the wildland. Or we can add them to the army of the dead. You are the few. We are the many. We serve the gods and the gods demand justice. To the rats. I am a queen not a butcher. And here is one of my favorite people john oliver. The program is called last week tonight with john oliver. And this las to do with Edward Snowden an interview he did in moscow. Did you do this to solve a problem . I did this to give the American People a chance to decide for themselves the kind of government they want to have. That is a conversation that i think the American People deserve to decide. Theres no doubt it is a critical conversation. But is it a conversation that we have the capacity to have . Because its so complicated we dont fundamentally understand it. It is a challenging conversation. I mean its difficult for most people to even conceptualize. The problem is these are massively complex and some of of it is invisible. Service providers technicians engineers the phone numbers let me stop you right there, edward. Because this is the whole problem. Right. This is the whole problem. I glaze over because its like the it guy comes into your office and you go oh in fairness dont teach me anything. I dont want to learn. You smell like canned soup. Its a real challenge to figure out how do we communicate things is that require sort of years and years of technical understanding and compress that into seconds of speech. So im sympathetic to the problem there. Brilliant. He is. Just brilliant. We markable talent. Remarkable talent. Had post the comedic instinct to do that interview with snowden. An journalistic instinct. Did you know he was going over. No, we didnt know he was going over. We only knew when he returned. He called mike and i in the middle of the week and said heres what i have done. And this is fantastic. And there it was. Rose now when you went after him, was that your decision . Mike and my decision. Rose you and mike. Are you programming we did a deal. Rose and basically you watched him when he substituted for jon and said oh pie god. This is we can create that show. This is a quintessential original voice. Rose this is low hanging fruit. This is somebody whose dna aligns with our dna. And what we said to him was very simple. Well give you a canvas. You paint on it however you want. We trust your voice. And well stay out of your way and well support you in whatever way you need. Rose so project all this out for five years. Uhhuh. Rose ten years. What are we looking at . I think were looking at a world in which content is king. In which you want to have a wide range of content that is connecting with all kinds of different audiences. You know we look to build passion engagement with our viewers. So some people are addicted to girls and Silicon Valley. Some people love boxing. Some peep are a dicked to the dualary some to our dramas, some to late night bill mahrer and jon. So all thats important to us, and were not selling advertising, were selling a brand. Were selling a subscription. So we want our subscribers to say over the course of a month, this is more than worth it. And i think that if we provide all kinds of flexibility for how you get that Service Going forward we think this is multilateral. Its not binary. Its not either you are a streaming service or you are locked into an old ecosystem. Were going to have a big business with comcast going forward. A big business with charter and directv and verize on and dish. And at t. As well as apple. And new partners. So again, as i said at the outset, this is an expansion of the pie. Rose tell me about vice. Yeah, very exciting. Rose chain smith. Big fans at our place of shane and the work that he does. Does. I knew you were smart when he hired alissa. Hes very good. Hes very very good. And they have an expansive view of news and storytelling. The vice show which has been on hbo for over a year is doing terribly well. And what we said to him. Rose what does that mean terribly well wa, does that mean to you. Many millions of viewers cuing up to watch the show every week. And i think it also has a particular stickiness with young people, with millennials which is also exciting to us. What we said to shane a number of weeks ago was lets do more. Lets expand the number of shows that you are doing. Lets make some documentaries together. And lets create a daily news show. Lets build a daily news show that, you know is anchored on hbonow and migrates to hbo. We dont have any particular schedule that its tethered too. We can make the show, put it on at any particular time. And let your imagine stretch and see how the vice voice might fit on hbo. He liked that idea thankfully and were going to expand that. His daughter works for vice. He said i like vice more than i trust them. Yeah. I had Great Respect for david but i respectfully disagree. And i think if you look at the quality of their work on our network and on their site they have been dogged. They have been intrepid. Theyve been brave. They are in kandahar theyre in the deserts of africa, theyre on the streets of ferguson. And. Rose in the heart of africa. Exactly. And they are doing very illuminating and very insightful work. I trust them implicitly. Rose so you can see vice you can see everything hbo around the world now. Thats correct. Rose so where ever you go 150 markets around the world. We have networks in 60 countries. And we licence our programming to about 150 markets around the world. And then we have home of hboes which is essentially our licensed programming which the hbo brand name in Nine Countries around the world. Rose a producer comes to you and to michael. And says i got to show you something. I have a fantastic idea. And i even made a video i want to show you. What are you looking for . What is the mate rick they have to pass for you and your partner. Two things i think one is that potential show runner breathing the idea. Can you feel the passion coming emanating from that individual . As opposed to are they thinking the idea . Everything that i have observed that has really worked well on our network over time you can see that the person bringing it in is living it feeling it has thought about it for a long period of time. Be whether that is benny as i described to you or mike when he pitched Silicon Valley. Its so palpable. And secondly do we have a shared vision with them about, you know where we think we want to take that storytelling. And once we do we dont land the keys over to them. But we certainly hope they have the vast preponderance of good ideas and not us. And writing is always crucial. Of course thats everything. What is the future of sports on hbo . Listen we have a long tradition of boxing real sports which has been on 20 years hosted by bryant gum balance, which is. Rose great. Which has won so many awards over time. Hard knocks which is our look inside nfl Training Camp. Documentaries that have crossed the spectrum of all sports. So sports has always been a vibrant part of the hbo brand. The live boxing World Championship boxing, the one sport that we can you know, play in that we can afford to play it has done very very well. What is going to happen with the fight. Who knows it will be a great fight. Im not asking who is going to win. Why did it take so long to get these two guys together. I think it took a long time because the principals each of the principals needed to want to get together more than we wanted them to get together. So its a little bit its a little bit like tom friedman says about the israelis an palestinians, they need to want the Peace Process as much as we wanted it. They didnt want it as much as you did. I think thats absolutely right. I think finally. Was it one or the other or i think it is just the stars finally aligned and you know, i would tip my hat to les here because without his imagination and energy this would not have come together. But he called me in august and said i think we can make this happen. Lets share it lets do it as partners. I agreed immediately. And well be ready to go on may 2nd. I think its not only going to be a great event for boxing, i think its going to be a great event for sports. Will you be there . Absolutely i will be there. Absolutely. Take a look at this. This is a clip i will show you. This is when the late david carr and josh and some other people were on here and you will recognize the subject they are talking about. Roll tape. I have this feeling about the last 15 years in tv that have to do with at the beginning of it people were just defensive about the idea that tv could be good. And i feel like there was this initial move in talking about television that had to do with comparing it always to books and to movies. And so to praise a show, you had to say this show is as you know the wire is good because its like dicens. You know it is good because it is like scorsese. To me this was a status anxiety that really haunted television. Because earlier it was always in the position of being the medium where people thought of it as commercial junk that was made collaboratively and experienced and then went away. But i feel like the last 15 years have been this fantastic period because people have begun to move past that notion of comparison as these to talk about tv and have started to actually talk about the value of television as a medium itself as something that, you know generally takes place eped soically over time. And isnt in a way a little bit like a live performance. One of the nicest things ever said about my show when we premiered is that this may forever blur the lines between television and film. Martin scorsese directing the first episode. The fact that the scope of it, and how big it is and what we can do visually now it almost doesnt matter t is almost incidental that it happens to be a television show. I think it wont matter at all. People wont necessarily identify it and certainly within that is it a tv show . Its not go ahead. I was just going to say that i think there is something really different. Because i think rewind ten plus years ago and almost all of the tv shows were made with market considerations. Yes. Very first and foremost. Almost exclusively will it sell how many people will watch, what will the estimate be and how much money it will work. It has to be a big big number you have to get to. And today truly outlets like hbo showtime fx, Sundance Channel we are really making tv shows and saying if the material is great and if the writing is exquisite it will find its audience if we have some patience. And thats not an irresponsible business decision. That is because it actually happens. Right. You are agreeing with everything. I agree with everything that has been said absolutely josh saiding it very, very well. An remember one other point. We only get 20 of our viewing for a particular show on premier night. 80 of the viewing is up over the period of the week so people are watching it on demand. People are watching it on hbo go. People will watch it on hbonow. People will watch it on multiplex feeds. So you dont necessarily need to be there on sunday night at 9 00. And that also creates the power of word of mouth. And people will come to it hear about it. So if you are a network like ours and youre not worried about advertising but rather youre worried about people valuing their subscription that say tremendous enhancement to their ability to value that. Any question in mind about the fact that there is enough creative talent enough good writers a enough talented performers to feed this demand . I am constantly amazed at the array of talent that is lined up at our door. And it is its breathtaking, actually. And the challenge is doing everything we want to do. And figuring out a way to use all that talent. Thanks for coming. Great pleasure carlie. Rose Richard Plepler of hbo. Back in a moment stay with us. Al michaels is here. He is one of marks most respected and prolific sportscasters. He is the only broadcaster who is called the super bowl the world series the stanley cup, finaled the nba finals and olympics for network television. He is currently the playbyplay voice of nbcs sunday night football. That program is among televisions highest rated shows. All of those stories and more are told in this book you cant make this stuff up miracles, memories and the perfect marriage of sports and television. I am so pleased to have al michaels back at this table. Welcome. Every 18 years we do this. I think we did this in 1997. Rose it has been a great life it is a great life. It has been yeah. Im blessed in so many ways. My family number one. My wife linda. Weve been together since 10th grade. Kids and grandkids and all of that. And i think i said in the book, i dont really believe in reincarnation probably because if i do come back and god wants to get even with me i will be be working in a sulfur mine in mongolian upon goldia on the night shift this was a pretty good run. Rose curt gowdy said dont ever get shaded. He did. Rose what did he mean. He was basically telling me at that point i idollized curt and wound up working with him. He said to me he said look youre going to have a really good career. Things are going to go very well for you. Which i didnt foe at that time. I mean i felt like i was off to a good start. But he wanted to make sure that down the line i always appreciated what it was that i was doing. I grew up wanting to do all of these things dreamed about them. And there is a certain, i think you have to have a seen naivete when are you a kid, charlie. I dreamed about doing all of these things, the world series olympics super bowl didnt even exist when i was a kid. They all seemed very possible. An then i look back now and i go oh my god how in the world did that happen. Rose the life has been bigger than the dream. It has been in a way. Because you need an unbelievable number of good breaks. And not everything has been a smooth sail for me. But along the way you just wind up, you wind up in a lot of right places if he right time. And i mean for me to wind up where i have and some of these great events and everything thats serendipitous more than anything else. There was the story that when you were 17 years old at Arizona State in tempe standing in line, and a guy in front of you ron sanda. Sal bando. Rose right, sal bando. And ten years later he ask in the world series and youre announcing. How great is that as a kid. Im standing there i introduce myself to i done know who he is he is there on a baseball scholarship. Im there because i want to broadcast the games on the campus station. Were talking about our dreams. Were 17 years old. And ten years later hes the third baseman for the oakland as and i am doing the world series because i am the announcer for the Cincinnati Reds at the time. One of your team won the pant you join curt gowdy and tony kubek on nbc doing the world seriesment and i walked into the clubhouse when at the got to cincinnati the as did the day before we looked at even other an were like what . Where are we . Ness. Rose how did this happen. God you can take me now just wait until the world series is over. Rose the idea of growing up. The howed the dodgers. Loved them. I grew up within walking distance of ebbitts feel it was a 15 minute walk. And when i was in Grammer School and the dodgers were mainly playing day games at that time, my mother came up with an excuse to take me out of the african afternoon session. To get me in the 8 to 12 ztions in the morning so that all of us could then leave school and one parent would be with us and walk us over to ebbittsfield. When i was ten years old i probably saw 55 games. Rose who was doing the games at that time. At that time red barber was doing the games and vince scully was the young and up and coming announcer. There was another announcer by the name of Connie Desmond who was great. So i have been listening to vinnie since i was six or seven years old. And hes estimate stock the dodgers. Rose does anybody do baseball better than him . No no. Hes just i live in los angeles. I will be driving around. And i will tune in and its like this is my whole life. I heard vinnie when i was six years old. And then i hear vinnie in my 60s. Its like what . And he sounds and its wonderful because he has you know what he has a great sense of wonder. He has seen a million games. Hes seen everything there is nothing sinnie hasnt seen. And yet its almost as if when you listen to his voice and the lilt its like he went to the game for the first time. Hes just its a brandnew thing for him. Its wonderful. There is one thing in this book about taking three generations of michaels. Uhhuh. As a fan to watch the game. Me, my son and daughter and my grandchildren. And my here are my two grandchildren. I mentioned early in the book that i know the Los Angeles Kings have had sort of a sorry history until recently. Until winning two of the last three stanley cups. And now these grandchildren they think this is a birth right. My son and i,. It has always been the king of hockey. Of course they pop up. What are you talking about. Were going to win this thing every year. So its wonderful. And its look to me sports thats the great connection with fathers and sons and grandchildren and daughters now who are you know, so many girls and women are into sports. Its wonderful. It gives you this common thread. You can talk about it and discuss it. And it may be more prevalent now than it was when i was a kid. I tell people all the time that the great common denominator for me. Because my father made me work in a country store. It wasnt like i a choice i made. He made me do it and it was all adults. And the common denominator was sports. You could talk about sports. And if you knew something then the adults would respect you. So he became part of the conversation. Yeah. And very much so in todays society. In fact i run into very few people who dont know at least something about sports. I dont think you want to pretend that you are the village idiot when it comes to sports. You want to understand at least whats going on. And supports has kind of its almost in a way i dont want to say its overtaken entertainment because it is entertainment in a way. But somebody very prominent man in the Entertainment Industry asked me the other day, has sports overtaken entertainment. And i said well theres a blending here right now. Because he was making the point that sports seems to wind up on the front page of lets say the New York Post about as much as anything else does these days. And it is, in its what ties the nation together too. It does. And speaking of that. I guess the russian defeat had to be for a moment, for a man for someone who is there at an incredible time as good as it gets. In 1980 as we all remember at least those of us who are old enough to remember, this was not a very good time for the country. We didnt feel very good about ourselves. Everything was going haywire. The soviets had invaded afghanistan. We were threatening to boycott their olympics which we did in 1980 subsequent to the Winter Olympics in lake be placid. You think the primary was almost 20 20 . We just didnt we didnt feel right. And we were hostages were being held in iran. And the country needed a boost. Rose the word they used was malaise. Right, for this hockey team which had no chance to beat the soviet soviets. I mean we were a bunch of fuzzie cheeked college kids our Team Average Age 22. And they were students and soldiers but of course they were hockey players that is all they did for 11 months. They trained and played hockey. They had almost reinvented the sport. They were so good that they knocked off a number of nhl teams on visits to north america. So they had recreated hockey. They were the best in the world by far. Clinical and precise and machinelike. And then of all crazy things we beat them. And we beat them in a game in which we trailed three times. In which we got outshot 3916. The soviets dominated that game. But the u. S. Scored four goals on 16 shots win the game 43. An then of course what most people forget is the u. S. Then has to win a game on sunday, a day and a half later to win the gold medal. They trailed in that game 21 to finland. Some say its almost a trivia question, without did they play after they beat the soviet union. It was herb brooks the coach, who after the Second Period of the finland game now they are trailing 21. So if the u. S. Loses the finland game, they dont win the gold medal. So the soviet thing would have been wasted. And his last words to the team before they took the ice for the third period in the finland game was if you lose this game youll take it to your grave. He had an adjective before grave which you can figure out what that was. And he was right. He was dead right. They would have taken that to their graves. Rose what is the metric for measuring someone without does what you do . I think the metric the metric for me would be to be in total sync with the game itself. Put a premium on getting everything right. Can you get everything right its almost impossible. Can you try to get everything right . Yes, you can. And i mean i think i prepare harder today than i did when i was starting out in my career. Theres just so much to know. And the fans know and the viewers know so much more than they did. And if you ares not on top of it, there are a lot of people that will going to say what are you talking about. Thats not right. So the hardest thing for me its like preparing basically for a final exam every sunday night. Thats how i look at it. I have to pass the exam. Rose in realtime. In realtime but its exhilarating because there is no take two in this business. You only get take one. But i think the key thing is to, you know as a viewer through the years if the announcer goes away from the picture too often. Once in a while you have to digress tell the story and whatever. I get that. But if you are not talking about what the viewer is seeing, its very disconcerting. So im always in sync when i set up you know where i am physically in a game i can see the field and then right below me is the monitor eye level. Just below you know what i see with the naked eye. So that if there is a shot change a camera change even from looking at the field i can see the shot change and i have to look at that to see what the viewer at home is seeing. Rose howard kosel. You knew him you worked with him you write about him. Sure, complex. I think he ran the gamut from charming to cantankerous. And i had him from 1977 through the final game that he ever did which was in 1985. And we did mainly we did mainly baseball. We did a couple of pro bowls together. This was before i was on monday night football. And some boxing. And he the thing about howard if you were with him you would come back with a story or five. I mean there was always something that took place with howard. And i mean he drew a crowd. And he was a lot of fun for a while. And then toward the end he became very bitter. He took himself off monday night football in 1983. Was never really happy with a lot of things. And kind of went out and in glorious fashion. It was a shame. Attacking everybody in sight. Attacking everybody. But just sulen and angry and you know toward the end you know nothing was better for me in those years than postseason baseball. And howard would show up and he wouldnt want to be there right off the bat. And of course being the big dog on the whole crew this would permeate the crew. And this was not a good thing. But boy at his best he was funny and lively. I mean. Rose smart. Very, very. He thought he was smarter than everybody. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And he knew you know he knew who he was. We would be sitting in a hotel lobby. First of all he would always wear in those years remember the Canary Yellow blazers that bruno always made us wear. So and nobody would travel with so nobody would we didnt have a wardrobe in those years. So you would have to take the blazer to the game. And howard wouldnt want to take another set of clothes. So he would wear the blazer in the hotel lobby the night before a game. And he would be sitting there in the lobby. A couple of times there would be a wedding going on in the add joining ballroom. The wedding part would realize howard kosel is sitting in the lobby the few pay cigar yellow blazer. And invariably the bride and groom would wind up coming out. And howard would always look at her and go. Howard would look at her and go, you could have done so much better. The stories about him one is that he was had had too much to drink. Uhhuh. He says to you take a stand. He did. That was in the 1984 at the playoffs. The game had gone so long. By this point howard was he was very close to being finished. And he took a stand during the game which was ridiculous. He wanted the team to bunt in a situation where the manager would have been fired in the middle of the game had he bunted. I was working with jim palmer too. Jim and i were trying to work the edges to not embarrass him but kind of explain why you might not bunt in this situation. When the game ended thats when howard went off on me about i took my stand. My stand my basically was howard, you cant do this. What was i supposed to do. Say howard youre an idiot. That is what you said. You want me to take a stand. If im here youre not, if you ares here im not. I basically said if you come in this condition again im out of here. And thats when my contract was up at the time. Ran abc sports. And i said to arledge i said look i love doing this i love doing baseball but i cant work with somebody who prepares for the game in the hotel bar. I just cant do it and arledge promised me if howard came back the next year which was 1985 that howard would not be in the hotel bar. What was the between ruin and howard. Complex. Ruin gave howard the opportunity to become howard. Through monday night football. And then sunday night. Through muhammed ali. Then he had this that. And then but toward the end it was basically and howard wound up ripping ruin in the book. Howard at the end of the day unless you were pretty much always kissing howards ass he would turn on you. And howard really lated the fact that ruin and Frank Gifford were so close. And they had been for a lot of years and they socialized together. He he denigrated everybody, Gifford Meredith didnt matter who it was. And sooner or later i was kind of like the new kid on the block for a while. So i was excused. And then i got some shots in the book toward the end. But it was a shame because he just went out with guns blazing against everybody. Sad, sad. O. J. Simpson. How close were you . Well we were colleagues. We had worked together over a period of time on track field. At the olympics and some superstar shows and all of that. He was a neighbor. And in those years we had moved from the bay area. In los angeles. And i had lived in brentwood. And oj lived five or six blocks from me. So he became my tennis partner. And i would play a ton of tennis with him. Everybody knew oj. And he was the pied pipe never a way especially with young kids. Have you spoken to him. I have not. Rose when was the last time you have spoken to him. Rose when he was in jail . After he got out of jail i saw him a couple of times. That was it and then. Rose sds costas go see him again in jail. Uhhuh. Rose what was the conversation when are you in jail with oj . It was strange. I saw him on three occasions. I mentioned in the book that what gave me pause was you know if you had not committed a double murder wouldnt you be pounding on the walls. Rose i didnt do t i didnt do it this is what ever it is what ever word you would want to use. He always said why i cant believe they thought i did this. So you know you go back three times. I had talked to him on the phone a couple of times too on the interim between the night of the murder and the night that they wind up with him, you know in the white bronco with al koulings. And the more i thought about it you know why arent you saying, i didnt do this. How could they think. Instead of. Rose did you say this to him at the time. I did not. I did not. Because at that point its you know you are just listening, basically. Its weird. Its such a strange thing. Here you are vilsitying o. J. Simpson in jail. Rose at his request or your request. Well i was i am a list of people that could visit him. He compiled a list or with his attorneys said look a list of people mainly friends and colleagues. And he had a lot of them. And i was on the list. And i must say too charlie. There was certain curiosity of factor. All of a sudden you see o. J. Simpson in jail. You know so and of course you come back from there. Everybody wants to know what said. Rose exactly. And so do i. So do you say to him i think you did this or do you say to him did you do this. You just listen. Rose or you just say you know what hes you are sitting there and all they did was basically listen to him. Because i guess you could have said did you do this. I should have said t you know, maybe somebody did. I dnlt know. But other you are sitting there and its not as if you are doing you know an interview for 60 minutes. But it is yeah its not as if you are doing a journalism, you know. Rose but at the same time. Rose i agree with all of that. It depends on the moment. Sometimes you want to get as much out of him as you can, without sort of ending it by saying did you do it. Rose way. And risking that. I think all of us who were in there probably wanted to believe he didnt do it. Rose did you really . Did were you looking for some reason to support him. I wouldnt say that necessarily. I was confused. I detail this in the book. The whole time line of that night and all that took place. You know. Rose tell the story of this, other than that you call up ted koppel. I was working behind the scenes. Right, because abc news obviously, this was the biggest story in the country for a while. For quite some time. And in that period where he between the murder and them catching him on the freeway or catching him actually at home after he had gotten into the driveway, there was so much misinformation that was being slung around. By everybody. So i had certain access to things that i knew that i could share with my network with Peter Jennings and with ted koppel at the time. And for instance on a night when i knew that oj wasnt in the house, there were a thousand people outside. I think it was maybe wednesday, tuesday or wednesday night whichever night it was. And will oj come out. And the rumors are swirling. Oj is going to have something to say. And i knew he it was the kardashians house. And people were wondering. Rose nobody believed it because they said if he had left we would know it. Exactly. So when i called ted ted was great. I said ted, there are certain things i can tell you an certain things i cant tell you. But i will tell you this hes not in the house. And ted said how can possibly get out. I said because i play tennis there a hundred times. And there is a gate in the back. And he want out through the gate and went between two other houses and went to the next street and car gashian picked him up. So nip way i said to ted i said i you cannot use that but he is not in the house. Do not go in there and say he is in the house because hes not. Rose do i helped to a certain degree. And what i was basically dogs was refuting misinformation more than anything else. Rose and the reason you couldnt tell was because because i was privy that would have opened up everybody would have gone to kardashians house. If koppel comes and says he is at kardashians house everybody goes to kardashians house. So i and again i was this is one of those weird situations were you know, are you dealing with friends and people you know not just oj but the others around him. And you have Certain Television information but you cant share it at that particular point. Rose anybody know what his frame of mind is today . No clue. I dont know. Hes in jail i winds newspaper jail on some cockamamie charge. You we know what this is all about. He should have gone to jail if he committed the double murder, of course. Rose you say if he committed the double murder do you have doubts. I dont now. I dont now. But im saying he was found he was found innocent, right. Our justition system we know what this is so im just saying thats again thats where he should have been convicted right. So now he gets convicted on this other charge because that is that is the even things up things. Yeah, hes yeah again i havent talked to him in years and dont plan to. You know i think now because i was listening to you so well that night. I think about the earthquake too, the other great moment that you cant imagine. Tell me about that. Well you are coming on the air for the world series. So there is a certain amount of nervousness anxiousness. You want to come out of the blocks cleanly. You want the first few words and couple of minutes to go nice and smooth and cleanly and we have were reallying in tape too. So ive got tim mccarveer and jim palmer. Great catcher i loved working with those guys. And tim is narrating a piece of tape. And all of a sudden i knew what it was after maybe a selling and a half as a long time california resident and having been through a number of earthquakes i knew what it was. And i said were having an earthquake which got cult off. And then we had snow on the screen then we came back with audio. And then we were off for about 15 to 20 minutes before we could get back on the air. I would say in retrospect charlie, it was a petrifying 15 seconds. It seemed like it seemed like a minute and a half. I mean earthquake always seems longer than it is because you cant wait for it to stop. But our backs are to the field and the cameras in the back of the booth. So at one point i thought oh pie god were getting pitched out. And were going to go down into the lower deck. So it was it was astonishing. You know you think about where we were in 1989 where with no social media no internet really. Cable television is still not what it became. Just a fraction of what it was, what it is now. So people arent getting information. So now within 30 seconds everybody in the stadium would go on twitter or whatever. And find out, hey youve got a collapsed portion of the bay bridge, a big fire in the marina and a pancake interstate in oakland. Nobody knew anything. In the stadium maybe a transistor radio you would listen to kcvs San Francisco. So after 15 or 20 minutes the crowd is chanting play ball, play ball. They had no idea what had gone on. And then all of a sudden the word came back. The world series was suspended for ten days and resumed a week from the following friday. Rose where were you at the time of the munich olympics . Tragedy . I was the announcer for the since in additionee reds at that point. I had not gone to abc yet. So i was i think i was in San Francisco doing a redsgiants series. Rose the reason i say that is that someone from abc said to me you know why we did so well is in part because sitting there there was a play by play announcer in sports. And he understood the moment. Are you talking about jim mckay. I am. Who did a fantastic job. Rose i am. Jim mckay was not what you would really call a sportscaster. He was i once likened him to a favorite teacher. Because jim would take you on this grand tour of the world wide world of sports. And he might announce demolition derby. Now nobody makes their chops announcing demolition derby. But what made it interesting is how mckay would fold in all of the stories that surrounded the competition. So jim took you around the world. Jim was he was phenomenal because he knew how to do Live Television. He lived in the Live Television world. And he was wonderful. And that was another reason that you know kosel didnt like mckay. Because kosel always felt that should have put kosel into that role as the newsman. Of course all jim did in that role was win a news emmy. And he was phenomenal at night. And the thing about mckay he was such a warm man a warm hearted man. Not only did he get everything right that night but there was a certain empathy. When he had to announce that the athletes were dead knowing that families mr. Going to hear about this he just did it with de it as jim mckay. This wasnt im announcing something and i want to put the right words together and im going to be eloquent here. This was his heart. This was thats what jim mckay was, he was a guy who announced with his heart. Rose and that was Walter Cronkite at the time of the kennedy assassination as well. Right, right exactly yup. Emotion. Rose pro football. You were there for a great super bowl. How surprised were you by the call . I was surprised by the call. But i was really surprised by the actual play itself. Because i can see where you might want to pass in that situation. I get that. Rose but not in the middle. Not in the middle correct. You have a 5 10 quarterback who is very mobile so you roll him out or you have him maybe throw a fade not end zone or throw it away or run not end zone. This is all in retrospect. Pete carroll has got to make the play called on the fly. Rose but do you know why pete made the call he did . I have heard his explanations. Rose which is basically i assumed he wanted to mix it up. They were playing with each others brains they think im going have him come right down the middle. No im not. I was in the car going back to the hotel that night with john harbaugh. Rose right. Baltimore raechbs coach. And john and worked on our pregame show. So this is 45 minutes after the game. And i just said to him you dont have to answer me. I said was this a case of one guy trying to outsmart the other guy. Can you overthink these situations . And john said well you can overthink them. I dont think he wanted to get into whether it was gamesmanship sfween carroll and belichick. This is going by too fast. But i think coaches, and this is for any sport charlie, can overthink the situation. So you know remember there was a crazy catch by curse which compelled the timeout call. Then youve got lynch almost getting into the end zone on a run. Now you got the clock running down. You know who really takes it in the neck if seattle wins the game and there is no time left is belichick for not taking his time outs. Rose exactly. He didnt take the timeouts. Because if he had taken his timeouts and seattle scores then brady still could get the ball with 30 35 seconds get a couple of first downs kick a field goal and go to overtime this is why we love sports. Because here we are sitting here a couple of months later talking about the plays, it was phenomenal. Rose i have never known one call that seemed to galvanize some of opinion. Oh yeah yeah. Its so easy. We know how it turned out. Now somebody said to pete was this the worse call of all time to pete carroll. And pete says i dont know about that but it was the worst result of all time. Rose but it reminded me john call a perri uhhuh. To be so close yet so far. Pete carroll to be so close yet so far. Right. Rose and how long does it take. This it could take awhile. You know what the glaet thing about these coaches pete carroll has to get his Team Together go through minicamps, go through Training Camp and go through noir seasoning. Hes got to put this behind him. And he will. He will it doesnt mean you dont wake up in the middle of the night and think could have should have, might have. I think you have a little bit of that. But you cant dwell on what took place in the past. Or living in the past. All of these people are living in the future. You look at Bill Belichick this year. Remember everybody in new england is going crazy. They lose to kansas city on a monday night. They get killed. They are 2 and 2. They dont look good. Even their two wince, they had to same thing like brady no longer has it. Brady no longer has it its lets start jimmy. But remember belichick what about what happened last week, on to cincinnati. What happened. Were on to cincinnati. And he was like that was the mant ra. Were on to cincinnati. Rose this book is called you cant make this up. Miracles memories and the perfect marriage of sports and television. Al michaels, thank you. Charlie, always a pleasure. Lets not wait 18 more years now okay. Rose i promise. Okay. Rose thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org on tomorrows pbs newshour, big ears a Music Festival in knoxville tennessee that blends the sound. You are watching this is nightly busines re su. Merger mania. A trillion dollars in deals so far this year. Could this be a record year and is it a bullish sign for investors . On second thought, conventional wisdom says pay off your mortgage before you retire. Give you reasons why that might not be the best idea. Making the the grade. Winter is never a great time for the airlines and this year was challenging to say the least. Which ones performed well which didnt . The carriers get their report cae got it for you. All that and more for thursday april 9th. Good evening, everyone. Sue has the night off. Well yesterday, we told you about the 100 billion worth of deals on the table. That helped push the