Couldn’t quote stuff from the last thread but all good T-dawg
Someone mentioned the studio change of the pandemic. Pete wanted to do that for a while but hadn’t pulled the trigger, one of my clients that bought with MTO was actually involved at the beginning with the remodeling of Pete’s office and the studio. When I left Pete had converted his office into an Adventureland theme and it was well done.
So then the studio was next. Pete wanted an area for the Tuesday show, an area for ‘other’ shows and an area strictly for Moving To Orlando. People thought it was strange that Moving To Orlando was getting its own section and that it was somehow because of me but I don’t think they knew how much money was coming in from that. I was the only agent for most of the first year and Pete got 50% of the commission and I personally made around $450,000 pre-tax so Pete got that as well, which was close to what he made personally with all other things combined.
I wanted a living room setting and Pete wanted 1964 worlds fair so we blended them, but the main thing I wanted was for both of us to be able to be on camera at the same time because it would break up the shots from being so ‘switchy’ all the time and with the size limitations, there was no shot like that.
We got the entire thing done and then Pete refused to sit in the living room setting. He wanted to be in his brick wall setting which was to my right and back, so I couldn’t see him. He did this because he wanted his microphone and the living room setting used lapel mics but Pete won’t appear on the show if he can’t use his mic (he also won’t allow anyone else to use that mic if he’s not on the show so it has to be disconnected and a standard has to go in its place - I did actually watch a bit of last weeks show and even as the guest, the mic has been moved to his guest spot so I guess he’s still on this mic thing)
So I was having a conversation in front of me but nobody was actually in front of me and I was talking to a wall, while Pete had a screen in front of him with my shot on it.
He didn’t like the look of those shows and I said, ‘yes because you’re not sitting where you are supposed to be, which is the chair next to me. We have totally different backdrops, I might as well do this from home.’ So he scraped the whole thing and converted everything back to the way it was. It was a massive waste of time, energy and money and we ended up back at square one.
Now this move, is GREAT for the team because Pete consistently and randomly won’t let people in his house to film stuff. You also have to go hang out with him afterwards in his office so they won’t have to do that anymore, but mostly it’s that they will be able to film on their time and just have access.
When I was doing Moving To Orlando, we would do home tours and those were a lot of leg work because I needed to find 4-5 houses that would work for us to film. I also needed to get the listing agent/owners on board for a day and time to come see it, then I need to research the area or at least learn the MLS stuff for each house and then clear my schedule to go film the stuff. Only to show up and have Pete roll himself in to film me and do 1 or 2 houses and say he’s too hungry to keep going, I’d have to wait on him to eat and then he’d say he was tired and wanted to go home, so he would. When I would complain to him that it only gave us 2 episodes in the can when I have 3 extras waiting to be filmed he would just get mad and start yelling at me. The same thing would happen with the studio shows. I would come prepared to do 10 MTO shows at a time because I knew Pete would give up somewhere in the middle and that he would be mad at me down the road and I’d never be able to get back in the studio to Film content, which happened constantly.
John’s a smart guy and is going to use this opportunity to get that side of the street clean while Pete’s in a spot where he’s lost the high ground and it will be a huge benefit to the show.
The DIS is solely owned by Pete, John and Donna only have ownership in the Dreams side of things so they need Pete on camera and pushing people to Dreams. When the show was being bought out this last time, the stipulation was that pete would have to stay on as a salaried employee and would have full creative control. I tried to tell them that losing pete would hurt in the short run but it really would benefit in the long term. Pete is a huge detriment, he’s a loud mouth, he talks out of his ass, and he can’t bring in a new audience. I constantly read stuff where people wish the show was like it was 2 decades ago, the subscriber and viewership has flatlined and it’s because the audience isn’t growing or changing. MTO and DVC brought in some new viewers but almost everyone I talked to that found the DIS through either of those channels specifically mentioned that they did not like Pete. They didn’t like him on Moving To Orlando and they didn’t him on the DIS and other places. These were potential new viewers that just didn’t like him. So the company will do better without him, 100%
Yes, Corey and Craig were going to buy the company at a time in 2019 I believe. From what Pete told me it was a similar deal to what happened to me with buying Pete out. It started as a flexible repayment plan and then got more rigid as the deal go closer. I know for my deal, Pete wanted $30,000 per month for 10 years and if I missed even 1 payment at any point that he wanted both my properties as collateral to be sold and all profits given to him, so I bailed on the deal. I know there’s was similar but I think there’s was a higher amount.
This post is getting long so I’ll let someone else post and then post what happened with him trying to buy a new house last year.
