Bill Maher: Still Politically Incorrect and Conservative About His Brand
Bill Maher has proven that being a politically incorrect, libertarian atheist is a solid business model. His weekly HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” in its 12th season, is as successful as ever. Aired live on Friday, "Real Time" draws 4 million viewers a week, including those who watch rebroadcasts. Maher is also an executive producer of “Vice,” HBO's breakthrough magazine show, which is about to enter its sophomore season. Sketchy on the details, Maher offers that he's developing “a couple other talk shows” built around talent he admires.
Meanwhile Maher finds time do from 60 to 70 standup gigs a year with "a special love for red states, where there are lots of blue people." He's written several bestsellers and his 2008 documentary “Religulous,” made millions. Ranked No. 38 on Comedy Central's "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time," Maher has raked in enough cash to own Ben Affleck's old place in Beverly Hills, complete with basketball court. In 2012, he purchased a multi-million dollar stake in his beloved New York Mets and still had enough cash to donate $1 million to a SuperPAC that supported Barack Obama's reelection campaign.
Maher not only has 2.5 million Twitter followers, he was an early investor in the social media network. “I almost made enough on Twitter to pay for the Obama contribution,” he says, with his trademark self-bemused chuckle.
Maher may give generously to political candidates and causes, embrace social media and mercilessly lambaste Tea Party Republicans, but as far as Bill Maher Inc. goes, he's decidedly old school. In fact, he's downright conservative about his own brand. While a lot of once anti-establishment celebrities from Bob Dylan to Howard Stern are proud product pitchman, Maher has never done commercials. He's been approached by advertisers over the years, but always felt it would mean he'd have to tame his acerbic "nothing is sacred" act. He knows his shtick; the creative freedom he embraces could only work in a commercial-free place like the one he's enjoyed since 2003 at HBO. "I'm a controversial, polarizing figure," says Maher, who obviously wants to keep it that way. Ultimately, he knows it's good for business.
However, there is one product where Bill Maher would just say, "Yes." A longtime advocate for marijuana legalization, who freely cops to his own recreational use, Maher is ready to do his testimonial best, as a shill for top-flight pot. "I'd be one credible spokesman” says Maher, again with a bemused chuckle.
Still Maher has his boundaries. Other superstar stand-ups on the road make millions in merchandising t-shirts, videos and various knickknacks. Not Maher. “I'm not going out to Birmingham or Biloxi to make a financial killing,” says Maher. “I feel like like if I go crazy with merchandising it would interfere with the bigger picture.” By that Maher means using his wicked humor to expose a world filled with hypocritical tycoons and Neanderthal politicians run wild. Going too commercial, he fears, would make him too much like those he lacerates. “I'm working off the news, it's a perpetual comic goldmine,” says Maher. “Why would I want to mess with it?”
Tellingly, his executive producers and many of his writers have been with him since the launch of "Politically Incorrect," the talk show that was the template for "Real Time." ("Politically Incorrect" launched in 1993 on Comedy Central and then went to ABC in 1997. It was cancelled in 2002 in the wake of controversial comments Maher made on the show about the 9/11 attacks; ABC said it pulled the plug due to poor ratings.)
One business move Maher is convinced will pay off and that points to his own personal finance conservatism is his investment in the New York Mets. An avid Mets fan, he plunked down an undisclosed amount for a minority interest, even though his financial advisor told him it was a bonehead move. “My financial advisor was right about Twitter, but he was wrong about the Mets,” says Maher, noting that legendary multimillionaire entertainers such as Bob Hope (Cleveland Indians) and Bing Crosby (Pittsburgh Pirates) invested wisely in the national pastime. “These days even when crummy teams get sold they go for twice what the guys before them paid.”
I ask him with all the changes going on at CNN, which like HBO is owned by Time Warner, if he could take his brand of politically incorrect talk to the all news network. After all, he'd often sit in for Larry King, when King was a CNN mainstay. “Never, going to happen,” says Maher. “A while back I had some extensive talks with MSNBC and ultimately we all looked around the room and we all just knew with advertisers to worry about, we'd never be able to make it work.”
Maher revels in the political pulpit and comic freedom HBO allows. Although having just turned 58 in January, he knows that everybody who does what he does, like his pal Jay Leno, "has an expiration date." Maher muses that he could "do a Glenn Beck" and start his own digital network. "Glenn Beck is printing money with only 500,000 subscribers," says Maher. In the next breath, he pledges his allegiance to HBO. A Glenn Beck-type gamble does seem too renegade a move for the financially conservative "Mr. Politically Incorrect."
