World Screen MIPCOM 2010 by World Screen

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THE MAGAZINE OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA • OCTOBER 2010

www.worldscreen.com

Great Minds of Television Jerry Bruckheimer Ridley Scott Ricky Gervais John de Mol Mark Burnett David Shore Shonda Rhimes Jenji Kohan Fernando Gaitán Michelle & Robert King

Sony Corporation’s Howard Stringer Saban Capital Group’s Haim Saban Lionsgate’s Jon Feltheimer Endemol’s Ynon Kreiz Fuji TV’s Hisashi Hieda FremantleMedia’s Tony Cohen NBC Universal’s Belinda Menendez Fox International Channels’ David Haslingden

MIPCOM Edition

Got Talent The Simon Cowell Factor

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contents

OCTOBER 2010/MIPCOM EDITION

departments

Publisher Ricardo Seguin Guise

WORLD VIEW

Editor Anna Carugati

A note from the editor. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Executive Editor Mansha Daswani

By the International Academy’s Bruce Paisner. VIEWPOINT

By Reed MIDEM’s Anne de Kerckhove. UPFRONT

Lionsgate’s Jon Feltheimer. STUDIO SHOT

207

373

top feature

New shows on the market. IN THE NEWS

106

NBC Universal’s Belinda Menendez.

106

Endemol’s Ynon Kreiz and Philippe Maigret.

RUNNING THE SHOW

This special report on the great minds of television includes in-depth interviews with Simon Cowell, Haim Saban, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ridley Scott, Ricky Gervais, John de Mol, Mark Burnett, Fernando Gaitán, David Shore, Shonda Rhimes, Jenji Kohan, and Michelle and Robert King.

SPOTLIGHT

FremantleMedia’s Tony Cohen.

special report

152

From high-budget events to less expensive thrillers and family fare, mini-series and TV movies continue to be solid businesses.

one-on-one

Fox International Channels’ David Haslingden. MAKING MOVES

AETN’s Nancy Dubuc. MILESTONES

207

SONY’S HOWARD STRINGER

Sony Corporation’s chairman, CEO and president discusses the Japanese behemoth’s leadership in 3D. —Anna Carugati

FOXTEL’s Kim Williams. IN FOCUS

102

MarVista’s Fernando Szew. LATIN BEAT

104

Globosat’s Alberto Pecegueiro. WORLD’S END

on the record

325

SABAN CAPITAL GROUP’S HAIM SABAN

In this exclusive interview, Haim Saban offers his vision of developing brands, investing in media assets and more.

552

In the stars.

Online Director Simon Weaver Art Director Phyllis Q. Busell Sales and Marketing Manager Kelly Quiroz

Sales and Marketing Coordinator Cesar Suero Sales and Marketing Assistant Alyssa Menard Senior Editors Bill Dunlap Kate Norris Jay Stuart George Winslow Contributing Editors Lisa Haviland Grace Hernandez José Miguel López James Trimaco Lauren Uda Contributing Writers Dieter Brockmeyer Chris Forrester Bob Jenkins Elie Leshem David del Valle David Wood

—Anna Carugati Editorial Interns Leonardo Melamed Wendy Wong

in conversation

WORLD SCREEN is published seven times per year: January, April, May, June/July, October, November and December. Annual subscription price: Inside the U.S.: $70.00 Outside the U.S.: $120.00 Send checks, company information and address corrections to: WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A.

Production and Design Director Matthew Rippetoe

Business Affairs Manager Erica Antoine-Cole

LEADING THE CHARGE

—Anna Carugati

GLOBAL NETS

Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari Executive Editor, Spanish-Language Publications Rafael Blanco

—Bill Dunlap & Anna Carugati

MARKET TRENDS

Managing Editor Kristin Brzoznowski

373

SYCO’S SIMON COWELL

A household name thanks to American Idol, The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, Simon Cowell has turned Syco into an entertainment powerhouse. —Anna Carugati

Ricardo Seguin Guise, President Anna Carugati, Executive VP and Group Editorial Director Mansha Daswani,VP of Strategic Development WORLD SCREEN is a registered trademark of WSN INC. 1123 Broadway, Suite 1207 New York, NY 10010, U.S.A. Phone: (212) 924-7620 Fax: (212) 924-6940 Website: www.worldscreen.com

For a free subscription to our newsletters, please visit www.worldscreen.com.

VISIT HUNDREDS OF DISTRIBUTORS’ SCREENING ROOMS AT

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contents

OCTOBER 2010/MIPCOM EDITION

STATE OF PAY The latest developments at the leading pay-TV platforms 172… THAT SINKING FEELING The effects of the euro-zone crisis in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain 180…VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE! Profile of the French media market 188… INTERVIEWS Ricky Gervais 196…Endemol’s Ynon Kreiz 202…ZDF Enterprises’ Alexander Coridass 204 MAKE THEM LAUGH Comedy is a crucial element in hit shows 276…PRESCHOOL SWINGS FORWARD Trends in programming for the youngest ones 286…TOONING IN TO ASIA The rising prominence of Asian animation firms 304…INTERVIEWS Michael Poryes 294…Turner’s Michael Carrington 314…Sesame Workshop’s Gary Knell 316…Moonscoop’s Christophe di Sabatino 318…Cyber Group’s Pierre Sissmann 320…YFE’s Stefan Piëch 322 CALL OF THE WILD Programming about nature and wildlife remains popular with viewers 352…CRIME WAVE Demand is rising for true-crime docs 358… 15 YEARS OF HISTORY AETN’s Nancy Dubuc discusses the cable channel’s evolution 364…INTERVIEW National Geographic Channels’ David Haslingden 362…PROFILE Veria TV 370 HOW BIG IS BIG ENOUGH? Consolidation is reshaping the format business 398…WILL THE SMALL SURVIVE? Small and mid-size independents are finding ways to remain competitive 402… INTERVIEWS Talpa’s John de Mol 408…Mark Burnett 409…Banijay’s François de Brugada 410 LIGHTING UP THE SCREEN The region’s big pay-TV brands are expanding their reach 426…INTERVIEWS Fuji Media’s Hisashi Hieda 424…Discovery’s Tom Keaveny 433… Universal

asia pacific

Networks’ Raymund Miranda 434

THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA Pay TV is dramatically altering the landscape 444…SMALL MARKET, BIG

AMBITION

Spotlighting

Israel’s

television

business 448

FACING THE FUTURE Distributors are finding

new

content

opportunities

These targeted

Europe 478…BRAZILIAN ACCENT Gains in

magazines

the pay-TV sector 488…INTERVIEW SPE’s Klaudia Bermúdez-Key 498

appear both inside

THE LEADING SOURCE FOR

World Screen

PROGRAM INFORMATION Listings

and as separate

of distributors attending MIPCOM 509

publications. 12

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world view

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR ANNA CARUGATI

Raising the Bar The interview with Simon Cowell in this issue has been a long time coming. I had been trying to secure one for a few years, but his transatlantic work schedule with hit shows in the U.S. and the U.K. made setting up an interview difficult. Finally it happened! I must admit to a certain sense of trepidation before speaking to him. As a viewer, I was all too aware of his notso-nice image as a judge on American Idol, with criticisms of contestants that bordered on caustic. How, I wondered, would he behave with me? I figured the nasty persona was exactly that—a role played for entertainment’s sake, to spice up the shows with blunt honesty and a bit of controversy. Chances were he wouldn’t be ornery with a journalist. Well, I was right, but I didn’t imagine how kind Cowell would be. He was generous with his time and I learned he is a consummate professional, extremely grateful to the team that works with him and completely dedicated to constantly improving on what he has done in the past. That desire to always do better is not unique to Cowell. It’s a common theme among all the interviews that accompany our main feature,“Running the WE TALK TO... Show,” in which we talk to some of the great minds of television, those individuals whose creINDIVIDUALS WHOSE ative élan and business acumen have changed and advanced the genres in which they work. Speaking to them I got a glimpse of what it takes CREATIVE ÉLAN AND to be exceptional—from the research prior to the interviews to actually speaking with Ricky Jerry Bruckheimer, Ridley Scott, Mark BUSINESS ACUMEN Gervais, Burnett, Haim Saban, John de Mol, David Shore, Shonda Rhimes, Jenji Kohan, Michelle HAVE CHANGED AND and Robert King and Fernando Gaitán. In describing this exceptional group I can use all the usual phrases: dedicated, passionate, innoADVANCED THE vative, out-of-the-box thinkers, but somehow those aren’t enough.What all these great creative GENRES IN WHICH minds have in common is the ability to come up with a vision, an idea for something that hasn’t been done before, and then follow THEY WORK. through with the necessary persistence to see that vision to completion, without compromising it. There is one more phrase I would use—unabashed enthusiasm. It was almost palpable in Ridley Scott, who at 73 has more endearing childlike eagerness for his projects than most people younger than he will ever have in a lifetime.And the experience was the same while interviewing the other visionaries in this edition. I just had to show interest in their craft and they would light up, displaying an engaging excitement about their work—no, I should say their labors of love. 16

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Howard Stringer, the president, CEO and chairman of Sony Corporation, is our One-on-One interview and shares his vision of the transformative power of 3D— touching viewers in theaters and at home. Haim Saban, who rarely gives interviews, is our On the Record interview. One of the toughest and ablest dealmakers in the media industry, Saban is returning to the television-distribution business with the relaunch of Power Rangers. During my interview with Saban, we touched on the topic of philanthropy. He and his wife set up the Saban Family Foundation in 1999, which supports medical, children’s and education programs. Philanthropy was a recurrent theme in my conversations with many of these executives, who are committed to raising the bar ever higher in their respective fields, and who are dedicated to educational outreach programs and to helping those less fortunate than themselves. Enthusiasm, talent and generosity of spirit—the kind that prompts this group of unique professionals to pass on their expertise to others—I find that an intoxicating mix. I’ve been editor of this magazine for ten years, and still, interviews like these always provide ample opportunities to learn. In this issue, we also salute Jon Feltheimer, the MIPCOM 2010 Personality of the Year, whom I will be interviewing after his keynote address at the convention, and we celebrate the 15th anniversaries of HISTORY in the U.S. and FOXTEL in Australia. Our features examine timely topics: in TV Europe, the challenges faced by European pay-TV platforms and the French TV market; in TV Kids, what’s new in kids’ comedy, preschool shows, Asian animation and licensing and merchandising; in TV Real, overviews of wildlife and crime-and-investigation programming; in TV Formats, the consolidation in the format industry; in TV Asia Pacific, a look at the Asian pay-TV landscape; in TV Middle East & Africa, market profiles of Israel and South Africa; in TV Latina, the Brazilian pay-TV market and Latin American distributors. We also offer the handy, pocket-sized TV Kids Distributors Guide and TV Formats Distributors Guide. I hope you enjoy reading our interviews and articles as much as we have taken pride in preparing them—and, like Simon Cowell and the other great minds of television, we are always trying to improve on what we’ve done before.

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global perspective

REFLECTIONS ON MEDIA ISSUES BY BRUCE L. PAISNER

Freedom Summer In late September, as we do every year, the International Academy presented its awards for distinguished work in news reporting. Predictably, some of the nominees were young, aggressive and based in war zones. As we stroll the Croisette in Cannes this week doing our work, it’s worth remembering that we have colleagues in this business who put their lives on the line every day doing theirs. Life and death are a matter of course for many young reporters and have been for as long as the human race has wanted news of conflict and needed reporters to go get it. When I was a reporter many years ago, I faced dangers that pale in comparison with those that many of our nominees have confronted in their own work. But those formative experiences—of confronting fear and overcoming it—have left me with a lifelong appreciation for what reporters go through, and the risks they take, to get the story. The episode I remember most vividly occurred in the summer of 1964, when I was a reporter for Life magazine, then the preeminent source of news for most Americans and LIFE AND DEATH ARE A many other people around the world. The Korean War was long over, and theVietnam War MATTER OF COURSE FOR was just beginning.The field of fire for American news orgawas the segregated MANY YOUNG REPORTERS nizations American South, and Ground Zero was the state of MissisAND HAVE BEEN FOR AS sippi. On a hot, steamy day in August 1964, folk singer Pete Seeger and I got off an airplane LONG AS THE HUMAN in Jackson, Mississippi. Pete was one of the country’s preemimusicians, and a liberal RACE HAS WANTED NEWS nent icon. Indeed, he had been blacklisted in the ’50s, and this OF CONFLICT. Life story, after it was printed, would be his return to the mainstream media. As we walked into the terminal, Pete was accosted by a middleaged man who pushed him against the wall, spit in his face, and hissed,“You liberal, communist Northerners should get out of here, or we know how to take care of you.” He meant me, too.They particularly hated Life reporters in Mississippi that summer. Of course, we did not go back North; instead, we went to one of the places where young volunteers from the North were fighting segregation during what came to be called “Freedom Summer.” Pete sang there, and we traveled throughout Mississippi for the week that followed with 20

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similar performances at other encampments. Hanging over everyone that summer was the disappearance in June of three civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney. By the night of August 4, we were in Meridian, Mississippi, where we got word that the three had been murdered, and their bodies had been found in nearby Philadelphia, Mississippi. The FBI said it would announce late that night where the bodies were, and journalists should be ready. When I called the Life office in New York to ask what I should be doing, their only comment was, “Why are you still with Pete Seeger? You should be in Philadelphia.” So, off I went with photographers from Life and the Associated Press.The arrangement with the FBI was that if I called them at 11 p.m., they would tell us where the bodies were being unearthed. We drove around for a while, bought gas from someone who later was convicted for the murders, and stopped so I could call the FBI. No cell phones then, but there was a convenient pay phone across from the gas station. As I made the call, the phone booth was surrounded by tough looking young guys with clubs and guns who had been following us for a while. I asked the FBI agent, a Southerner from Mississippi, if he had any advice. In a deep drawl he replied, “No, sir, I sure don’t have any advice, but I surely want to wish you the best of luck.” So, with my heart pounding, I simply walked out of the booth, jumped into the car and took off. Dumb luck. Had I stopped for a second or even made eye contact, I would have been pulverized. At least that’s what the New York Times chief civil rights correspondent, Homer Bigart, told me a few days later. Soon we were at the dam where the bodies had been buried—and the threat to me, however fleeting, was over. But I have never forgotten it. The young men and women who cover today’s many conflicts, often in much more dangerous circumstances than mine, will benefit from the fact that they put themselves, even briefly, in harm’s way. And that’s a big part of the International News Emmys, and one of the reasons we are so proud of the recipients. Our story on Pete Seeger was published in Life later that summer. He once again became acceptable to the mainstream media and has been performing with charm and brilliance ever since. Bruce L. Paisner is the president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

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A LOOK AT INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS BY ANNE DE KERCKHOVE

Embracing Change The world of entertainment is changing at a pace never seen before.This is a crossroads year: as we take apart old business models and recover from the recession, we look forward to a bright future. Exciting trends are emerging that will forever change the way we create, produce, deliver and consume content. To begin with, our TV sets are taking on a new dimension.The advent of 3D on a mass scale, with extraordinary visual feasts like Avatar, made us rediscover the power of the image. This revolution will take over our home entertainment. Reality TV will take on an entirely different meaning. I can’t wait to explore some of the magical regions of the world with my children through our television set, offering them an exploration impossible in real life. More than ever, we live in a connected world.The digital transformation of television and home entertainment was taken to a new level with the iPad, connected television sets and game consoles and the proliferation of smartphones worldwide. The debate about which device will take over the home is obsolete. Consumers are multitaskers and want to be entertained seamlessly via all devices in and out of the home. Connected devices offer amazing consumer interactions in real time on a mass scale.Technology without content is nothing and increasingly the reverse is true. Storytellers and technologists will come together to create new interactive transmedia experiences. Mobility will be a huge theme in the coming years, unleashing unparalleled growth in terms of consumers and viewing opportunities. As entertainers, we can now be with our customers anywhere they go. The voice of the consumer is stronger than ever. They are in the driver’s seat of change and at the center of the content ecosystem.They interact with content and shape its outcome. They control what they consume and when. Last year saw record TV-viewing figures. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global entertainment market will grow by 5 percent compounded annually until 2014, reaching $1.7 trillion. Nonetheless, this growth will be challenging to monetize as audiences fragment. Our business models must change to reflect new consumer habits. Consumers won’t let commercial restrictions impact their viewing pleasure. If we can’t offer them an entertainment experience legally and easily, they will simply steal it. Finally, the world is shrinking. Geographical barriers of content distribution are disappearing. That’s great news for content makers as they can tap into consumers everywhere. However, local consumer insight and delivery remains more vital than ever. So concretely, what does it mean for our industry and MIP markets? We must innovate at a pace never seen before. 22

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We must let deep consumer insight lead our innovations. Partnerships across geographies and industries, from brands to technology, will multiply. Dialogue with partners will be required at the inception of new ideas and throughout all the steps of content creation and distribution. MIP markets must facilitate different worlds coming together. Creativity and unique content remains the heart of our industry. Without extraordinary programs such as Lionsgate’s Mad Men;Tandem Communications, Muse Entertainment and Scott Free Productions’ The Pillars of the Earth; TV Azteca’s Drowning City; ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s Florizel Street; eOne’s Haven and Saban’s Power Rangers, to name a few, consumers would simply not be captivated. At MIPCOM 2010 and MIPTV 2011, as we continue to develop our services, from animation to formats, from co-production workshops to digital and branded entertainment summits, we must offer the best global platform for transformational deals that drive the industry. “Redefining the Entertainment Experience” is the theme at MIPCOM and we are pleased to introduce a number of new business enabling initiatives.The first Branded Entertainment VIP Summit will bring together 50 key executives from advertising agencies, brands, producers, broadcasters, social media and digital platforms to explore the growing potential of branded entertainment. Connected Entertainment is a key topic at this year’s conference and MSN and YouTube will enlighten us on the latest developments in social entertainment and digital content. Another first will be the Asian Content Exchange, designed to facilitate opportunities with Asian markets. There will also be a country focus on Australia to explore their production capabilities and creative talent. We will further our focus on early stage transactions with the Producers’ Forum, to help producers develop, fund and sell their projects internationally. On the creative side, we are delighted to honor Jon Feltheimer, the co-chairman and CEO of Lionsgate, as Personality of the Year.We are also introducing the MIPCOM World Premiere TV Screenings as a premium showcase.The inaugural event will present an unaired episode from Lionsgate’s drama Mad Men and their new romantic comedy Running Wilde; cast members will be present. Anne de Kerckhove is the director of the entertainment division at Reed MIDEM.

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AFL Productions www.aﬂproductions.com • Police Patrol: The Movie • Funny & Funnier • Naked & Funny • Theory of Catastrophes • The Most Shocking Videos 1 & 2: Location: Russia!

The dialogue-free programs in the catalogue of AFL Productions are easy to place in any market around the world, with little to no adaptation needed, according to Yuri Volodarsky, the head of development and distribution. Funny & Funnier, for example, is 5x30-minute entertainment program, featuring no dialogue, just pure gags. Also from the entertainment portfolio, Naked & Funny is set up like a traditional hidden-camera show, but with an erotic twist. There’s also a section of catalogue called “Caught on Tape,” which features real footage of uncommon events that were captured as they unfolded. Among the offerings are The Most Shocking Videos 1 & 2: Location: Russia! The 2x45-minute prime-time specials are available in English and Spanish. It’s not just factual that’s on offer from AFL, however. A further offering for the market is Police Patrol: The Movie.

Police Patrol: The Movie

“When I sell content, I am always trying

to trade places [with the buyer] to feel how my content appeals to a particular channel.

”

—Yuri Volodarsky

ALL3MEDIA International www.all3mediainternational.com • Accused • Undercover Boss • The Cube • The Silence • Reggie Perrin 2

ALL3MEDIA International heads to MIPCOM with a strong portfolio of drama to showcase to buyers worldwide. Louise Pedersen, the distributor’s managing director, points to properties like the six-part Accused, from Jimmy McGovern; the TV-movie thriller Stolen, based on a true story; and BBC One’s Reggie Perrin 2. “[Our dramas are] appealing because of the high production values, great writing and production teams, as well as an established track record of success.” Formats are also on the roster for ALL3MEDIA, with The Cube and Undercover Boss, which, Pedersen says, “was a huge U.S. ratings success, and is a very strong commercial property as a format as well as a finished show.” Discussing her overall goals for the market, Pedersen says that the aim is to reach “strong commercial deals for our new titles, launch the new revised Midsomer Murders and pitch our new lineup to the widest range of buyers possible.”

“

The Cube is an innovative format and cost-effective to produce.

”

—Louise Pedersen

The Cube

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Bandeirantes Group www.band.com.br • Sex Angels • Justice • P 24 • The Age of the Cougar • Endless Sea

The Bandeirantes Group has been present in the lives of the Brazilian people for more than 70 years, through its network of radio and TV channels, along with numerous other media platforms. Its content distribution arm, Band TV International, has been bringing out for the worldwide market some of the best of what Brazil has to offer. And MIPCOM has served as a great platform for this over the years. “This year, Bandeirantes will be at MIPCOM with a new stand,” notes Elisa Ayub, the director of international content at Band TV International.“It will be a great opportunity for buyers to get to know the quality of Brazilian production through the hands of Band.” Titles being presented at this year’s market include Sex Angels, a sitcom; Justice, an entertainment offering; and P 24, a reality show spotlighting Brazilian cops. In the way of telenovelas, Band is showcasing The Age of the Cougar. Endless Sea is an HD production with a journalistic angle.

Sex Angels

“ Drama, series and also documentaries and reality programs from Brazil are some of our best offers to MIPCOM buyers.

”

—Elisa Ayub

BBC Worldwide www.bbcworldwidesales.com • Misfits • Mad Dogs • Outcasts • Beast Legends • Arctic Circle with Bruce Parry

“It has been a phenomenal year for quality

content and we have invested heavily to get the very best drama, comedy and factual titles produced in the U.K.

”

The world’s largest content exporter outside of the Hollywood studios, BBC Worldwide has a huge variety of new content at MIPCOM. On the drama front, Helen Jackson, director of the indie unit at BBC Worldwide, spotlights season two of Misfits, as well as the new Sky1 mini-series Mad Dogs and Kudos Films’ Outcasts, set in 2045 and following a team of people attempting to establish life on another planet. “In terms of drama, our new titles...combine high production values with international names.” In the documentary genre, Jackson points to Arctic Circle with Bruce Parry and Beast Legends, which “has enormous appeal to commercial broadcasters,” Jackson states. “Combining breathtaking scenery, scientific exploration and mythical legends, this series has it all.” Jackson adds, “I know we’re heading for a really exciting MIPCOM. It’s undoubtedly one of the best lineups of shows we’ve ever had.”

Misﬁts

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—Helen Jackson

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Beyond Distribution www.beyond.com.au • Iconicles • Toybox • The Will: Family Secrets Revealed • Deadly Women: Face to Face • Riverdance Live From Beijing

Beyond Distribution continues to offer the market new properties in its core strengths of kids and factual. “It’s always exciting to launch new kids’ series at MIP Junior,” says Fiona Crago, general manager, referencing the new preschool shows Iconicles and Toybox. Also on offer is The Will: Family Secrets Revealed. “The true stories that the production team have discovered are absolutely riveting and full of the most amazing twists and turns that leave you gasping in disbelief.” As a companion to Beyond’s top-selling Deadly Women series about female serial killers, there’s Deadly Women: Face to Face. Beyond is also representing Riverdance Live From Beijing. “We have represented the superb Riverdance franchise since it first launched onto the world stage 15 years ago. This new recording, filmed to celebrate the 15th anniversary continues to capture the sophistication and vibrancy that Riverdance brings.”

Toybox

“I expect that there will be pent-up demand

from buyers for quality programs and increased competition for programs that do ﬁt this bill.

”

—Fiona Crago

Canal Futura www.futura.org.br/international • Adrenaline • Globo Ecology • A Ticket To… • Knowledge Grows On Trees • Arnaldo Cohen and Heliópolis Orchestra

“ The structure of Canal Futura allows

us to look for a range of programs for different targets.

”

Brazil’s Canal Futura, funded from both public and private sources, has positioned itself as an educational platform for kids, teens, families and educators. A 24-hour network, Canal Futura has produced a host of series that are available to the international market. They include the nature series Globo Ecology, the nontraditional travel show A Ticket to…, and the sports magazine Adrenaline, plus Knowledge Grows on Trees and Arnaldo Cohen and Heliópolis Orchestra, which watches as slum kids become musicians. In addition to showcasing its own productions, Canal Futura will be on the lookout for programming that fills its own scheduling needs. Lúcia Araújo, the channel’s general manager, notes, “We expect to find programs that focus on pluralism of cultures.” She’s also seeking out non-violent kids’ animation, primarily for boys, as well as documentaries on the environment, social issues and teenage pregnancy, among other subjects.

—Lúcia Araújo

Adrenaline

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Caracol Television www.caracolinternacional.com/ • Family Secrets • Women on the Edge • Sofia’s World of Magic • Land of Love • The Cartel 2

Colombia’s Caracol Television has been steadily increasing its sales to Europe, and the company is hoping to continue that trend at MIPCOM this year with a mix of telenovelas and drama series. Berta Orozco, the sales executive for Western Europe, bills Family Secrets as a “classic telenovela” filled with love, betrayal and intrigue. Women on the Edge, meanwhile, features self-contained episodes. Targeting teens and families is Sofia’s World of Magic. Land of Love focuses on a musician, while The Cartel 2 is set against the backdrop of the drug trade. “These are very good programs that are going to captivate clients’ interests—all of them are suitable as formats or as ready-mades.” Orozco notes that Caracol’s productions “all have a strong emotional component that makes the audience feel very close to what they are watching on the screen.”

“It’s important to highlight the originality of our scripts and the quality of our productions, both of which are very important elements to achieving our goals.

”

—Berta Orozco

Land of Love

CBS Studios International www.CBSCorporation.com • Hawaii Five-0 • The Defenders • Blue Bloods • The Borgias • Chaos

As buyers left the L.A. Screenings in May, one of the most talked-about shows was CBS’s Hawaii Five-0. Among the lead offerings from CBS Studios International at MIPCOM, the series has already clinched deals in Latin America and the U.K., among other markets. “Hawaii Five-0 is this season’s most anticipated new series,” says Armando Nuñez, the president of CBS Studios International. “We’re also delivering quality programming with the dramas Blue Bloods, The Defenders and The Borgias.” The Defenders, for CBS, stars Jim Belushi and Jerry O’Connell as colorful Las Vegas defense attorneys. Blue Bloods is about a multigenerational family of cops dedicated to New York City law enforcement, starring Tom Selleck. Jeremy Irons, meanwhile, headlines The Borgias, a nine-part drama for Showtime about the infamous family of the Italian Renaissance.

Hawaii Five-0

“We’re thrilled to be bringing such a strong slate to this year’s MIPCOM. ”

—Armando Nuñez

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Celestial Pictures www.celestialpictures.com • Journey to the West • Kung Fu Masterpieces

Journey to the West

Home to the legendary Shaw Brothers kung-fu movie library, Celestial Pictures is seeing increased interest from the international market for Chinese-language entertainment. Daniel Fung, senior VP of nontheatrical and channel distribution, notes, “Celestial Pictures’ unique position as a Chinese content producer and distributor backed by a legendary library allows us to capitalize on this interest by offering new Chinese-language programs as well as iconic library films.”The library will be on offer at MIPCOM, notably with the six-title Kung Fu Masterpieces. “The breathtaking action and fight sequences in these movies broke new grounds in martial arts choreography and set the benchmark for films of this genre today.” Fung is particularly pleased to be showcasing Journey to the West, “the highest-budgeted TV series ever produced in the history of Chinese television,” Fung says. “The series is the latest adaptation of the classic Chinese legend, but this time it is being produced by renowned Chinese producer Zhang Ji Zhong and backed by some of Hollywood’s best behind-the-scenes talent.”

“ With China garnering the world’s

attention these days, interest in Chinese entertainment has increased exponentially.

”

Cineﬂix International www.cineﬂixinternational.com • Inside the Box with Ty Pennington • Animal Mega Moves • Dinner Party Wars • William Shatner’s Weird or What • Murder She Solved

“ We’re offering a great range of formatted,

talent-led, factual-entertainment and specialistfactual shows.

”

In the last 12 months, Cineflix International has experienced a 42-percent growth in revenues, according to Paul Heaney, the president and managing director of Cineflix International Distribution. Building on that momentum is the top priority at MIPCOM, where Cineflix is unveiling several new factual-entertainment and specialist-factual properties.There’s Inside the Box with Ty Pennington, which pits two amateur designers against each other in a decorating competition. In Dinner Party Wars, meanwhile, couples will battle it out to be named champion hosts. Filling the demand for true-crime content, Murder She Solved focuses on women who cracked daunting murder cases in Canada. Other top properties are William Shatner’s Weird or What and the six-episode Animal Mega Moves. The overall slate, Heaney says, should provide broadcasters with “schedule flexibility” as well as “strong demos, either for single demos or both male and female [audiences].”

—Paul Heaney

Dinner Party Wars

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—Daniel Fung

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Cinemavault www.cinemavault.com Somewhere Tonight

• Who Do You Love • Donkey • The Last Lovecraft • Puck Hogs • Somewhere Tonight

Canada’s Cinemavault specializes in the distribution of independent feature films. It is bringing to market a diverse portfolio that Racquel Mesina, executiveVP of international sales and markets, expects will appeal to a broad range of clients. Who DoYou Love, for example, is a $15-million music biopic, while Donkey is an action feature, Puck Hogs a comedy about a hockey team and The Last Lovecraft falls into the sciencefiction and adventure categories. For channels that prefer arthouse fare, there’s Somewhere Tonight, the American remake of Theo van Gogh’s original 06/05, starring John Turturro. “One of our major goals is to [make] channel programmers and distributors more aware of our product in HD, availability of a variety of language tracks, and the wide selection of product in our library that has participated in A-list festivals such as Toronto, Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin and Cannes,” Mesina says. Cinemavault is also eyeing acquisitions of TV series and alternative product, she says.

Puck Hogs

“One of our major goals is to

have channel programmers and distributors more aware of our product in HD.

”

—Racquel Mesina

Claxson www.claxsonmedia.com • Surfin’ The Globe • Volcano Hunter • Brotherhood of the Snow • All That Show: The Trip

“ Claxson has made

Brotherhood of the Snow

great achievements in producing a wide range of genres that appeal to a [variety] of buyers.

The best places to go surfing in Latin America are featured in Surfin’ The Globe, one of many lifestyle properties from Argentina’s Claxson. Brotherhood of the Snow, meanwhile, explores snowboarding culture through the eyes of Spanish brothers Ruben and Isaac Vergés. Outside of extreme sports lifestyles, Claxson is also putting the spotlight on musicals, with All That Show: The Trip. While in Volcano Hunter, photographer Carsten Peter ventures across Hawaii. The Claxson catalogue, says Ariel Taboada, head of programming, production and operations, showcases the company’s abilities to deliver the “highest quality of production while being able to produce around the world, in any language without limitation and at the same time maintaining competitive production costs. Claxson offers a wide range of different programs at a competitive price and at a quality level that attracts buyers around the world regardless of their origin or culture.”

”

—Ariel Taboada

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Comcast International Media Group www.comcastintl.com Mel B: It’s a Scary World

• Mel B: It’s a Scary World • The Spin Crowd • Bridalplasty • Then & Now • Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan

Comcast International Media Group (CIMG) is bringing a “truly exceptional” slate to MIPCOM, according to Jene Elzie,VP of international sales and strategic planning. Elzie spotlights Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan, an upcoming G4 series. “G4 has been given never-before-granted access to follow a U.S. Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) platoon during its upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.” From E!, meanwhile, comes The Spin Crowd, executiveproduced by Kim Kardashian, about the world of Hollywood publicists.And from The Style Network comes Mel B: It’s a Scary World, focusing on the former Spice Girl. Rounding out the slate are Then & Now, about former and current A-list celebrities, and Bridalplasty. “The goal, as always, is to capitalize on not only the renewed activity in the marketplace but also the buzz surrounding our new shows,” Elzie says. “The excitement for us is palpable and, as a team, we are constantly trying to build on this momentum.”

“ We are fortunate to be

riding a wave of unprecedented success from our U.S. networks this year.

”

—Jene Elzie

D3 Teleﬁlm www.d3teleﬁlm.com • Cheaters • Locked Down • Tales of an Ancient Empire

Locked Down

One of the earliest reality-TV hits from the U.S., the series Cheaters is heading into its 11th season in syndication. D3 Telefilm is bringing the show to MIPCOM. “Cheaters is a special series for me personally, because I was the first distributor to sell the program when it debuted 11 years ago, as a speculative pilot,” says Cord Douglas, D3’s co-principal and head of distribution. “I signed the producer, Bobby Goldstein, to his first distribution contract while I was working for Keller Entertainment Group. Many buyers initially thought the series was too outrageous for network television, but over the years the series has proven itself to be enormously successful.” He adds, “We believe there are still many untapped markets for Cheaters to penetrate and thrive worldwide.” D3 also has two films to showcase. “Locked Down supplies the kind of action that’s been missing from TV movies over the past few years,” Douglas says. “Tales of an Ancient Empire provides a made-for-TV product that delivers the swashbuckling adventure of theatrical pictures like Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans, without the huge price tag.”

“ We hope to sell television rights in all major territories for our recently completed television movies.

”

— Cord Douglas Tales of an Ancient Empire

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Dori Media Group www.dorimediadistribution.com • • • • •

Pilots’ Wives

Ladronas (Beautiful Thieves) Ciega a Citas (Date Blind) Split II uMan Pilots’ Wives

Dori Media Group’s daily drama Split—about a teenage girl who discovers that she is half-human, half-vampire— sold to more than 45 countries within a year of its release to the international market, including nine in Europe. Dori Media Distribution will be aiming to replicate that success with a second season being launched at MIPCOM. Another title that has chalked up interest in Europe is Ciega a Citas (Date Blind), which has sold to 11 countries in the region. It, too, will be showcased at MIPCOM, together with two other daily dramas, Ladronas (Beautiful Thieves) and Pilots’Wives. “We know our clients have high expectations from us, and as always we come to [the market to] introduce a wide scope of telenovelas and daily dramas,” says Nadav Palti, Dori Media Group’s president and CEO. Palti also sees strong potential for the continued rollout of uMan, a reality format that has clinched deals in 12 European markets.

“ All of our productions are known for their ability to

cross boundaries with universal story lines, trendy themes, updated editing, unique shooting techniques [and] neutral-looking casts.

”

—Nadav Palti

Endemol Worldwide Distribution www.endemolworldwidedistribution.com

“We expect MIPCOM

• Hot in Cleveland • Offspring • The Haunting Hour • Bananas in Pyjamas

will be a market of strong trade as broadcasters ﬁrm up their schedules for the coming six to 12 months.

Over its ten-episode first-season run, the comedy Hot in Cleveland delivered an average of 4.2 million viewers per episode for TV Land, making it the network’s biggest hit to date. Represented globally by Endemol Worldwide Distribution—which is bringing stars Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves and Valerie Bertinelli to MIPCOM—the series has sold to CTV in Canada and Nine Network Australia. Cathy Payne, chief executive of Endemol Worldwide Distribution, notes that the company’s MIPCOM slate also includes Offspring, the latest drama from John Edwards, and the live-action kids’ series The Haunting Hour, which will air on The Hub in the U.S. On the animated front, there’s Bananas in Pyjamas.“It’s the 3D remake of the Australian classic series which became a much-loved favorite of audiences across the globe,” Payne says. “We are focused on growing our distribution through the addition of North American scripted product,” Payne says of the company’s priorities this year.

”

Hot in Cleveland

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—Cathy Payne

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Entertainment One Television International www.eonetv.com Haven

• Goodnight for Justice • One Angry Juror • Devil You Know • The Beat • Haven

With the TV-movie market appearing to pick up traction again, Entertainment One (eOne) Television International is excited to be offering two new properties with well-known talent behind them.There’s Goodnight for Justice, a Hallmark Channel original starring Luke Perry and directed by Jason Priestly, and One Angry Juror, a Lifetime original starring Peter Benson and Jessica Capshaw. It is also showcasing the Syfy drama Haven. Complementing the scripted highlights are three factual titles, says Helen Curtis, head of sales for Scandinavia, the U.K., Central and Eastern Europe and in-flight: Scrappers, a Spike TV series; The Beat, about the cops that patrol Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; and Devil You Know, focusing on criminal masterminds. “From series, mini-series, MOWs, documentaries, children’s programming and factual entertainment, eOne Television continues to have the ability to attract an impressive roster of in-demand creative partners, top networks and specialty broadcasters.”

“The Entertainment One catalogue

continues to grow. The quality and range of our content attracts international buyers across all platforms.

”

—Helen Curtis

Fireworks International www.contentﬁlm.com • Thorne: Sleepyhead • Thorne: Scaredy Cat • Freak Encounters • The Critics’ Choice Movie Awards • The American Comedy Awards

Headlining Sky1’s drama slate this year are two adaptations of Mark Billingham’s popular Tom Thorne detective novels, Thorne: Sleepyhead and Thorne: Scaredy Cat. The crime thrillers, each consisting of three one-hour episodes, are being sold internationally by Fireworks International and lead off the company’s top new properties. “Thorne already has a huge fan base from the millions of people around the world who have enjoyed Mark Billingham’s books,” says Saralo MacGregor, executive VP of worldwide distribution.“That, combined with a very strong cast and production team, will prove highly appealing.” MacGregor adds that Fireworks’ slate this year also includes non-fiction fare, such as Freak Encounters,The Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and The American Comedy Awards. MacGregor adds, “We are confident that this quality-driven diversity will allow us to meet the varying expectations and requirements of our international buyers.”

“ Our MIPCOM slate is

one of the most diverse we have brought to the market in recent years.

”

—Saralo MacGregor

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Thorne: Sleepyhead

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FoxTelecolombia www.foxtelecolombia.com • • • •

Kdabra

Sikis La madre Un sueño llamado salsa Kdabra

FoxTelecolombia is heading to MIPCOM with a view to showcasing its high-quality production capabilities, according to Samuel Duque Rozo, its president and CEO. “We expect to show channels, producers and distributors from all over the world what we do, [including] projects we’ve developed in recent years like El capo, Kdabra, Tabú, Tiempo final, Mental and La dama de Troya, among others.” The company is offering a slate of formats of series and telenovelas, as well as production services at its 13,000-square-foot Bogotá studios.“For the end of the year, we’re highlighting the filming of Sikis, an adaptation of Mental [produced by Fox Television Studios for FOX in the U.S.] for Spain and Latin America,” adds Duque Rozo.The company is also wrapping up production on Un sueño llamado salsa, as well as beginning pre-production of Tabú’s second season. In December, the company will finish filming La madre, a new version of RCN’s telenovela. It is also working on the second season of Kdabra.

“FoxTelecolombia has created a new

commercial division to distribute products and formats and to market its vast production capacity.

”

—Samuel Duque Rozo

Globo TV International www.globotvinternational.com • Watercolors of Love • Paradise City • Sound & Fury • Seize the Day • Internal Affairs

Watercolors of Love

“ The titles that we will

present are audience leaders in Brazil and have the quality to be easily adapted to different programming grids.

The latest TV production from acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles (City of God) is Sound & Fury. The rollout of the mini-series, recently licensed to Sweden’s SVT, is part of Globo TV International’s efforts to position itself as much more than a distributor of telenovelas. “This year we decided to further amplify our catalogue with different genres, which allows us to attend to the demands of programmers and, consequently, reach new clients and new platforms,” explains Raphael Corrêa Netto, the head of international sales. Nonetheless, the Brazilian distributor does have a number of telenovelas to showcase, led by Watercolors of Love and Paradise City. Globo is also making its clients aware of its growing international co-production business, following partnerships with Telemundo in the U.S., TV Azteca in Mexico and SIC in Portugal.

”

—Raphael Corrêa Netto

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Incendo www.incendo.ca Wandering Eye

• Stealing Paradise • Exposed • No Surrender • Dead Lines • Wandering Eye

Recognizable television actresses headline Incendo’s new crop of TV movies for MIPCOM. Jodi Lyn O’Keefe is in Exposed, Mena Suvari stars in No Surrender, Jeri Ryan features in Dead Lines and The Mentalist’s Amanda Righetti is the lead in Wandering Eye. Also on offer is the tentatively titled Stealing Paradise, about a brilliant engineer who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a colleague who stole one of her designs. Movies of the week are the specialty at Incendo, which turns ten next year and continues to deliver between five and six titles a year to the market. “Incendo continues to create high-quality television movies with compelling story lines and strong characters that have established the Incendo Thriller brand,” says Gavin Reardon, who heads up international sales and co-productions at the company. “Incendo is committed to expanding its production activities to include provocative television series in the coming months.”

“The Incendo Thriller brand has evolved

into a staple for many of our clients. This year’s slate is no exception and I am pleased to continue to deliver high-quality movies that can be seen around the world.

”

—Gavin Reardon

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios www.mgm.com Stargate Universe

• Teen Wolf • Manhunt • Pink Panther & Pals • Stargate Universe

The hit 1980s movie Teen Wolf is getting a contemporary reboot at MGM for launch on MTV early next year. “We think Teen Wolf could explode with teen viewers as well as the 18-to-34 demo,” says Gary Marenzi, co-president of worldwide television. “The episodes contain well-crafted, sharply written story lines, with nuanced characters and great special effects.We feel Teen Wolf is the perfect show to tap into the young-adult zeitgeist, with an attractive and likeable cast you’ll pull for week in and week out.” Other top titles from MGM include Manhunt, an action thriller with Latin heartthrob Cristian de la Fuente; Pink Panther & Pals; and Stargate Universe, the latest release in the popular sci-fi franchise. “Our goals are to continue growing our traditional basic, pay- and free-TV [business], as well as tapping into the digital explosion,” Marenzi says. “Right now we’re diligently working with potential co-production partners on our extensive TV development slate.”

“ The show features

intricate story lines, incredible sets, featurequality special effects and characters unlike any you’ve seen on the previous Stargate.

”

—Gary Marenzi 46

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MORE TO COME … QUALITY

PROGRAMMING AT MIPCOM

IT’S ALL ABOUT CREATING TOGETHER

Visit us at MIPCOM Riviera Beach Hall RB # 39 TEL +33 (4) 92 99 88 49 Tandem Communications Head office: Sonnenstrasse 14 80331 Munich Germany www.tandemcom.de

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Moving Pictures Film & Television www.movingpicturesﬁlmandtv.com Wake

• See You in September • Dolan’s Cadillac • Wake • Spooner • Infection: The Invasion Begins

Moving Pictures Film & Television will be presenting a new crop of feature films to its international clients at MIPCOM. “They are all character-driven,” says Paul Rich, the company’s senior sales executive. See You in September stars Justin Kirk; Dolan’s Cadillac is headlined by Christian Slater; and Vampire Diaries’ Ian Somerhalder is in Wake—all “established actors well-known to foreign TV and video buyers,” Rich says.The slate also includes the romantic comedy Spooner and the sci-fi thriller Infection:The Invasion Begins. “Compared to where it was last October, Moving Pictures has arrived at the next level of quality films,” Rich notes.“By the time MIPCOM opens, we expect to announce two or three more important, commercial, independent features in the action and romantic-comedy veins.We also expect to see a major jump in sales of our men’s targeted TV series (Bikini Destinations, with ten new episodes) and classic films (Wild Geese, Hellraiser IV).”

“ Our four-year-old company expects this to be its most productive, fruitful MIPCOM.

”

—Paul Rich

Muse Distribution International www.muse.ca The Kennedys

• The Kennedys • Reviving Ophelia • The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog

In 2011, HISTORY will debut its first foray into scripted programming: The Kennedys. Executive-produced by 24 co-creator Joel Surnow, the eight-part production will star Greg Kinnear as President John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Produced by Canada’s Muse Entertainment, The Kennedys is being launched to the global market at MIPCOM by Muse Distribution International. A specialist in “event and family-friendly programming,” according to president and CEO Michael Prupas, Muse is also presenting the new TV movie Reviving Ophelia.The film, Prupas says, is “about a rarely discussed topic: physical abuse by a ‘loving’ high school boyfriend of his high school sweetheart.” Rounding out Prupas’s list of highlights is The Mysteries of Alfred Hedgehog, “a fun and educational series for 6- to 9year-olds based on the science and discovery of the natural world.We would like to make sales in the English-speaking world.The series has sold spectacularly in other territories.”

“ The Kennedys is a

never-seen-before portrayal of these most public of figures in their most private moments of happiness, despair, intimacy and estrangement.

”

—Michael Prupas 48

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Opus Distribution www.opusdistribution.com • • • • •

Locked Away Next Stop Murder Deadly Sibling Rivalry My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend Rock Slyde

Launched just a year ago, Opus Distribution has established itself as a boutique provider of theatrical features and TV movies to the international market. Its Lifetime movie Next Stop Murder, for example, recently sold to M6 in France, while Locked Away, also premiering on Lifetime, clinched a slot on TF1. Both thrillers are being featured at MIPCOM, alongside Deadly Sibling Rivalry and the romantic comedies My Boyfriend’s Girlfriend and Rock Slyde. “They are madefor-TV films,” says Ken DuBow, the president of Opus. “It is not an easy equation to make work on screen because the producer must be able to deliver at a certain budget level while maintaining high production values. Opus is fortunate in its relationship with [independent producer] Seven Palms. They...[use] audience research to pre-test ideas before actually making them into films. I then share that research with clients for their feedback, with the goal of creating films that broadcasters and their audiences are asking to see.”

“ [These] films are

designed to ﬁt broadcast schedules, while appealing to particular demographic tastes in both content and story line.

”

Locked Away

Playboy TV International www.ptvioriginals.com

“Buyers know to rely

• Foursome • Badass! • Neighborhood Rumors • The Playboy Radio Show • Kiki’s American Adventure

Badass!

on us for the best production values in erotic content showcasing that distinct Playboy brand and style.

Playboy TV International’s new titles for MIPCOM are intended to deliver on the company’s long tradition of offering top-quality adult entertainment, while also appealing to a slightly wider demographic. Notably, there’s an increased emphasis on “female-friendly erotic series,” says Marisa Tamburro, the company’s senior sales manager. “We’re also skewing younger with the faster-paced Badass!, using a driving beat, lots of skin and some outdoor adventure to satisfy the gamers.” Tamburro also spotlights season four of Foursome, Neighborhood Rumors and The Playboy Radio Show. There’s also Kiki’s American Adventure. At MIPCOM, Tamburro is interested in “learning more about how mainstream broadcasters are using soft erotic content in late night and how Playboy TV can continue as a trusted supplier. I also plan to get the word out about our new shows and talk about what’s in the pipeline at Playboy Productions.”

”

—Marisa Tamburro

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—Ken DuBow

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www.all3mediainternational.com

ALL3Media International: All For Independents

The Silence A troubled, hearing-impaired teenager witnesses the audacious murder of a policewoman and is reluctantly propelled further into a loud and frightening world. Her Uncle Jim is assigned the case, and when Amelia identifies a drug squad police officer as the killer, he urgently needs to protect his niece. But hiding her from his colleagues jeopardises his career and puts his family at risk. Completed

The Fairy Jobmother Hayley Taylor is a self-professed “state benefit buster” – and she’s challenging Britain’s most work-shy families to get back to work. With tough love and encouragement, through laughter and tears, she convinces generations of unemployed to turn their world around by confronting the realities of their lives. With hard home truths, she motivates and changes their attitudes and aspirations – and overcomes their fears. Completed and Format

The Cube Seven simple physical and mental challenges, performed in this extraordinary environment, can win you up to £250,0000.

Play the onl ine CUBE CHALL ENGE at Mipcom on stand LR 3.22 and win a d igital video camera daily *

Completed and Format

Accused Compelling drama from the award-winning creative team of Jimmy McGovern, featuring a stellar cast including Christopher Eccleston, Mackenzie Crook and Andy Serkis. Individual stories of how ordinary people find themselves in a courtroom dock, facing their fate. Nothing is what it seems, and as we the viewer learn more – the question is should they be accused? Innocent, guilty or somewhere in-between? And will the jury make the right judgement. Completed

Monty Don’s Italian Gardens Exquisite, intriguing, and historically fascinating… world-famous gardener Monty Don takes us on a trip around Italy’s most beautiful gardens – it’s not just a feast for the eyes but an insight into gardens from the early Renaissance, through the Baroque and the Romantic Movement, to the great Italian garden revival of the early twentieth century. An inspiring journey… Completed

Helicopter Heroes The incredible inside story of rescues at 150 mph – in Explorer Choppers! From injured bikers and collapsed hill-runners to downed hang glider pilots, the Helimed Team deal with serious illness, severed body-parts and trauma 24/7. This real life drama is set against the stunning backdrop of the Dales and Moors of the Yorkshire countryside. Starring Richard Hammond in Series 1 – featuring his own real life-saving rescue. Completed *Monday to Wednesday

ALLNEWPROGRAMMES ALLNEWFORMATS ALLNEWCONCEPTS

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Pol-ka Producciones www.pol-ka.com.ar • • • • •

Left on the Shelf Be Kind To Me On the Edge More Than Partners Remorse

Be Kind to Me

The sitcom Left on the Shelf, an offering from the Argentinean outfit Pol-ka, follows three spinster sisters whose lives are marked by an inability to connect with the opposite sex. Also in Pol-ka’s comedy catalogue, Be Kind to Me is a comedic drama about a couple, who have two teenagers, facing a crisis after 22 years of marriage.These offerings come alongside the drama fare that Pol-ka is presenting, including On the Edge, which features a group therapy session of six patients and their therapist; More than Partners, about three women lawyers who will stop at nothing to win the cases in their personal and professions lives; and Remorse, centered on a group of friends who are marked by a common tragedy. A further title of note is Master Thieves. The 39x1-hour series has a political angle, as it tells the stories of robberies from the point of view of their protagonists, from planning to execution.

Left on the Shelf

Rive Gauche Television www.rgitv.com • • • • •

Scare Tactics Lisa Williams Live Operation Repo Style Diva Hunch

Rive Gauche has a slate of new U.S. reality programming for international broadcasters. Jonathan Kramer, the company’s chairman and CEO, lists Scare Tactics as one of its top new properties. “The hilarious and elaborately staged situations involving movie-style effects really entertain the audience.” Lisa Williams Live delivers readings from the clairvoyant. “[She] is a growing phenomenon for female audiences around the world,” Kramer notes. Offering more of a male skew is truTV’s Operation Repo.“The show features electrifying characters, conflict and comedy.” Kramer will also be talking to clients about Rive Gauche’s development slate, which includes the formats Hunch, Style Diva and Cyber Smarts. “Rive Gauche’s unique twists on the game-show formats Hunch and Style Diva will make them winners. Cyber Smarts is contemporary and cutting edge. All can be produced for a reasonable budget and geared toward broad, worldwide market appeal.”

Operation Repo

“ Rive Gauche expects channels to utilize our

long-running branded shows and to dig deep into our broad, appealing library to fill their varied programming needs.

”

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—Jonathan Kramer

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SBT www.sbt.com.br • A Rose With Love • Bridal Veil For Sale • Wildlife Adventure • Connection’s Reporter

Wildlife Adventure

Well known on the international market as a buyer of programming, Brazilian broadcaster SBT is keen to develop a global reputation as a content provider. Carolina Scheinberg, international sales executive, says,“SBT has a very close connection with its viewers and has been known for its commitment to bringing happiness and fun to Brazilian homes. Our mission is to extend this relationship to viewers worldwide.” SBT is looking to fulfill this mission with telenovelas like A Rose with Love and Bridal Veil for Sale, and factual offerings such as Wildlife Adventure and Connection’s Reporter. “SBT is constantly expanding its production facilities and increasing investments in order to bring highly acclaimed telenovelas, writers, artists, directors, information and so much more to the public,” Scheinberg says.“New telenovelas and entertainment shows are introduced to our millions of loyal viewers every year. SBT has been known for its many diverse entertainment shows, all carefully created and produced by award-winning, top professionals in the field.”

“ SBT has been

known for decades for its commitment to bringing lots of happiness and fun to Brazilian homes.

”

—Carolina Scheinberg

Scripps Networks International www.scrippsnetworks.com • Food Network EMEA • Fine Living EMEA

“ Our success has spread quickly and

people in the industry know the power of Scripps’ lifestyle brands.

At the end of 2008, Scripps Networks Interactive tapped Greg Moyer to take its global business in a new direction. As president of Scripps Networks International, Moyer put in place a strategy to take the company’s U.S. brands to platforms across the globe. Less than two years later, Food Network and Fine Living Network have rolled out across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in partnership with Chello Zone. Most recently, Food Network scored new carriage deals with Dutch operator Delta Kabel and Cypriot platform Cytavision. And Fine Living has been added to the lineup of MultiChoice in Angola and Mozambique. Moyer notes that the international rollout has been boosted by global recognition of the U.S. Scripps portfolio. “I was afraid that the fact we had only been doing program syndication for all these years, we’d have a lot of education to do to get people to understand that we operate very successful channels here in the U.S. Our success thankfully has spread quicky and people in the industry know the power of Scripps’ lifestyle brands even though they don’t get to consume them themselves on a daily basis.”

”

Paula’s Best Dishes

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—Greg Moyer

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SevenOne International www.71int.com • Blackout • The Whore • The Sleeper’s Wife • Benidorm Bastards • My Man Can

Jens Richter, SevenOne International’s managing director, has noticed that business is picking up again. “And we cannot wait to present our new catalogue,” he adds. “Whether [buyers] are seeking big-budget catastrophe events such as Blackout, first-class drama such as The Whore [or] thrillers such as The Sleeper’s Wife, our fictional lineup will be meeting a widespread demand for innovative and exciting new programming.”There’s also entertainment shows like Benidorm Bastards and My Man Can, which Richter says are “diverse and internationally adaptable.” Benidorm Bastards, a hiddencamera show, has already been sold in more than 20 countries.The game show My Man Can was a hit with German viewers immediately, says Richter, and sold into China even before its first broadcast. “I am absolutely positive the show will delight viewers from all over the world, as this game show tests in a fun way how well couples really know each other,” he adds.

The Sleeper’s Wife

“ High-quality TV entertainment clearly is

capable of capturing TV audiences— anywhere.

”

—Jens Richter

Starz Media www.starzglobal.com Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

• Spartacus: Gods of the Arena • Dan Vs. • The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation • Perfect Student • Industrial Light and Magic: Creating the Impossible

Starz has been stepping up its investments in original programming for its U.S. premium network, delivering buzzworthy dramas like Spartacus: Blood and Sand. On offer at MIPCOM will be a prequel to the period drama, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena. The six-parter “explores the back story and moves the series’ narrative forward in epic Spartacus fashion,” says Gene George, executive VP of worldwide distribution. Starz Media has a number of other genres to offer, George adds.“At each market we attend, we set out to provide our buyers, representing virtually all of the biggest broadcasters and programmers in the world, with a diverse portfolio of series, movies, animation and docs, which they can use to fill key slots and maximize their value to viewers.” This includes the new animated series Dan Vs.; the features The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation and Perfect Student; and the documentary Industrial Light and Magic: Creating the Impossible.

“ Starz has emerged as one of the most

innovative and ambitious TV companies in the business today.

”

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—Gene George

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Tandem Communications www.tandemcom.de • World Without End • Action Pack(ed): Volume One: The Lost Future • Action Pack(ed): Volume One: Treasure Guards • Pompeii

This summer, Starz in the U.S. was the first network worldwide to air the $40-million Ken Follett adaptation The Pillars of the Earth.The international rollout of the event production is well under way by Tandem Communications. Bernhard Schwab, sales director, notes, “In the following months the epic thriller, licensed to nearly 160 territories, will premiere across the globe.”Tandem is now introducingWorld Without End, the sequel to Pillars, and is also working with Pillars partner Scott Free on Pompeii, a mini-series based on the book by Robert Harris, in partnership with Sony Pictures Television and Peace Out Productions. In addition, Tandem has some new TV movies to offer, under the Action Pack(ed) label. The first title, The Lost Future, is budgeted at $7 million and has already sold to close to 170 territories.The follow-up is Treasure Guards, which goes into production this year. “Fiction TV events can capture the advertising dollars out there. Given the genres, production quality and the wellknown cast, these TV events find their place in prime time.”

“ Our entire lineup

Action Pack(ed): Volume One: The Lost Future

shall find broad appeal on an international basis and position Tandem’s product in the prime-time schedules of our worldwide broadcast partners.

”

—Bernhard Schwab

Televisa Internacional www.televisainternacional.tv • Teresa • Timeless Love • Marriage Diaries • Fill Me with Love • Dream of Me

“ Teresa [is one of] our strongest offerings at MIPCOM.”

—Ricardo Ehrsam

Televisa Internacional is bringing a diverse assortment of new telenovelas to MIPCOM.Topping the list of new titles is Teresa. Available in HD and as a format, the series focuses on a woman who uses her beauty to get whatever she wants, regardless of who she may hurt along the way. Ricardo Ehrsam, general director for Europe and Asia, sees the production as one of Televisa’s top titles for MIPCOM. Also on offer is Timeless Love, in which a man takes vengeance against the woman he believes led his brother to suicide.The contemporary novela Marriage Diaries focuses on six couples trying to make their relationships work. On the more lighthearted end of the slate is Fill Me with Love, while targeting younger audiences is Dream of Me, a co-production with Nickelodeon. Ehrsam also lists A Woman of Steel, which was launched internationally at MIPTV. “We will continue to sell it in different countries.”

Teresa

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WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT®

VISIT US AT STAND R31.37

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Televisa Networks www.televisanetworks.tv • Canal de las Estrellas • Telehit • Clássico TV • De Película • Ritmoson Latino

Telehit News

There are seven channels from Televisa Networks available in Europe, with distribution in Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Hungary and Portugal. All are programmed in Spanish, with the exception of the recently launched TLN in Portuguese. Fernando Muñiz Bethancourt, the general manager of Televisa Networks, says that it’s all about bringing to the market the most complete offering of Latin entertainment, “with a wide variety of TV channels, from musicentertainment to general-entertainment and movie channels with both Mexican and [other Latin American] movies. [It’s important to provide] an array of options, not just one or two channels.” Among the channel offerings are Ritmoson Latino, dedicated to Latin music 24 hours a day;Telehit, featuring programming for today’s youth; Clásico TV, which launched in 2007 with a mix of series and comedies; and Canal de las Estrellas, a general-entertainment service covering sports, special events, news and variety shows.

“ A whole range of our

content is young, daring, innovative and irreverent programming for today’s youth.

”

—Fernando Muñiz Bethancourt

Tricon Films & Television www.triconﬁlms.com

“ All the projects

• Bitchin’ Kitchen • Sanctuary • Insecurity • Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage • The Next Star

we work on are innovative and diverse, adding to their international appeal.

”

From Tricon Films & Television’s catalogue, Sanctuary and The Next Star are both currently in their third season and they continue to perform successfully and draw viewers to the networks, according to Lia Dolente, the international sales manager. Brand-new to the catalogue are the shows Bitchin’ Kitchen, a lifestyle series that offers a different take on food; Insecurity, a scripted comedy about the men and women of the fictional National Intelligence and Security Agency; and Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, a documentary about the 40-year career of one of the world’s greatest cult bands. “Attracting new buyers as well as maintaining and nurturing existing relationships is always important for us and is something we aim to do every market,” says Dolente of her MIPCOM goals. “We’re also expanding into children’s programming, which is very exciting for us.”

—Lia Dolente

Insecurity

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Turner Content Solutions www.turnercontentsolutions.com • Ben 10 movies • The Smoking Gun Presents • MONDOism • Yes, Chef! • M.A.D.

With a huge slate of content being produced for its global brands,Turner International recently set up an in-house distribution operation. First set up in Asia, Turner Content Solutions has since expanded to Latin America and EMEA. “This year at MIPCOM we will also have a larger booth, in which, for the first time, we will be representing all three Turner Broadcasting regions together, for greater collaboration between the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa and the Latin America units,” says Ringo Chan, senior VP at Turner Content Solutions.The Asia-Pacific team will be spotlighting the Ben 10 movies Ben 10: Race Against Time and Ben 10: Alien Swarm, as well as nine seasons of truTV’s The Smoking Gun Presents. Also available for Asian buyers will be MONDOism from Japan, Yes, Chef! from Korea and M.A.D. from Pogo in India. Adult Swim content, meanwhile, will be among the priorities for the EMEA team.

Yes, Chef!

“ This year we’re presenting a diverse and

rapidly expanding library of content that spans kids, actuality, lifestyle, world affairs and news programs.

”

—Ringo Chan

TV Azteca www.comarex.tv Running Away from Destiny

• Drowning City • Running Away from Destiny • Between Love and Desire

One of the largest producers of Spanish-language programming, Mexico’s TV Azteca continues to serve up novelas and drama series to the worldwide market, via its exclusive distributor, Comarex. New for MIPCOM is Drowning City, which Marcel Vinay, Jr., CEO of Comarex, has high expectations for. “We are confident it will capture and enthrall audiences worldwide. It’s not your conventional suspense story, but a thriller that has been created and developed covering every conceivable angle to make it an exciting and gripping series. It’s a one-of-a-kind production that has never been seen on Latin America television.” There are also two new novelas available. Running Away from Destiny focuses on three female convicts who escape prison and take refuge in a small town, pretending to be nuns. And Between Love and Desire is a co-production with TV Globo, about a man torn between two women. “Our previous markets have been very successful and we hope to continue this trend,” says Vinay. “We have very high expectations for MIPCOM.”

“ It’s been an amazing year so far with many of our shows proving to be immensely successful in different parts of the world.

”

—Marcel Vinay, Jr.

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Venevision International www.venevisioninternational.com • Eva Luna • The Perfect Woman • A Woman’s Sacrifice • Salavador: A Knockout Lover • Recipe for a Family Feud

Venevision International is eager to showcase its crop of new telenovelas in Cannes this month, building on its track record of delivering daily dramas to the international market. “For years our clientele have sought these programs for their proven track record in audience ratings,” notes Cesar Diaz, the company’s VP of sales. “This year is no different. We are offering proven novelas of the highest quality of production, compelling story lines, and featuring today’s top international stars.” Diaz cites Eva Luna as an example. Other top offerings include The Perfect Woman, about six women obsessed with beauty; A Woman’s Sacrifice; Salavador: A Knockout Lover and Recipe for a Family Feud, set at a bakery run by two former best friends, now bitter enemies.With the global economy rebounding, Diaz is expecting brisk sales at the market. He is also focused on showcasing a new area of the company’s catalogue: scripted formats.

The Perfect Woman

“ Venevision International is

recognized for leading the way in classic telenovelas.

”

Vision Films www.visionﬁlms.net • Elle: A Modern Day Cinderella Tale • Wrath of Cain • ePlanet • Xtreme Tourist • Beyonce: Destined For Stardom

Wrath of Cain

Vision Films is bringing a broad slate to MIPCOM with a view to filling a variety of buyers’ needs,“from good TV movies in the action and family genres to edgy and unique feature films, to a new selection of exciting travel programming, to educational kids’ programming, to fascinating biographies of top musical artists,” says Lise Romanoff, managing director. From the feature-film portfolio, Romanoff mentions Elle: A Modern Day Cinderella Tale, about a woman interning at an L.A. record label. In terms of action movies, there’s Wrath of Cain, starring Ving Rhames. On the documentary front, Romanoff is excited to be showcasing ePlanet and Xtreme Tourist. And in the 90-minute special Beyonce: Destined for Stardom, the singer’s rise to become one of the most recognizable pop stars today is explored. “The economy has been very healthy and stable for us since January of 2010,” Romanoff notes.

“ Our new titles are

all extremely TV-friendly and available in high definition.

”

—Lise Romanoff

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—Cesar Diaz

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World Wrestling Entertainment www.wwe.com WWE PPV Specials

• WWE Studios • Flagship shows • WWE PPV specials • WWE digital opportunities • Weekly programming

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has extended its presence across numerous platforms. The range of touchpoints for wrestling fans will be on display at MIPCOM, with WWE highlighting its flagship shows as well as movies, online opportunities and more. “Our goal is to reinforce the scope and size of the WWE business and attract new and upcoming players with our extensive offering,” says Dominic Hayes, senior VP and managing director of international TV and digital. “TV and PPV programming has long been the basis of our business at MIPCOM but our developments in movies, digital and mobile mean that this year we have even more to offer.” Hayes will also be showcasing WWE’s movie business.“WWE has been co-producing movies since 2002,” he notes.“Whilst this strategy has been successful for WWE, our new model sees us acting as an independent production house for our future films, of which we have nine slated over the next three years.”

“ WWE continues to fascinate viewers across all demographics and continues to grow its audience and global footprint year on year.

”

—Dominic Hayes

Worldwide Rights Corporation www.wrcorp.tv • • • • •

“ We are the only ones

First Lady Bola Cinta Pesona Kasih Feroz She, The Taxi Driver

producing Malaysian dramas for the local and international market.

”

—José Escalante

The partnership between Worldwide Rights Corporation and Latin Media Corporation aims to bring the best of South American and Malaysian drama to the marketplace. First Lady hails from Canal 13 in Chile, about a woman who seduces a presidential candidate. “It is a top-of-the-line production, with an excellent cast and writers,” says José Escalante, executive director of WRC and president of Latin Media Corporation.” From Malaysia, meanwhile, there’s Bola Cinta, set in the world of football, and Feroz. Escalante also cites She, the Taxi Driver as a lead new title. WRC is also promoting a Malay/Latin American tele novela co-production, Pesona Kasih. “We are excited to introduce Pesona Kasih to the world, based on our success with Bola Cinta, which was popular in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. With our aim to always provide high-quality telenovelas for the global market, we are thrilled to be part of MIPCOM with many more great programs lined up.”

She, The Taxi Driver

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MAKING HEADLINES IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRY BY ANNA CARUGATI

Knowing Your Audience

Jon Feltheimer Lionsgate is the leading independent studio in Hollywood. Co-chairman and CEO Jon Feltheimer has successfully bet on a number of factors that have led to the company’s success: targeting audiences that were underserved by the major studios; providing niche content on linear channels and online; focusing on innovative quality content, and keeping a watchful eye on costs. For these accomplishments and more, he has been named MIPCOM 2010 Personality of the Year.

WS: What helped you pull

through the economic downturn, and how well positioned are you to take advantage of whatever opportunities the market offers now? FELTHEIMER: We start with the foundation, which is how our company was originally constructed. We have always been diversified, with revenue coming from films, television, including our syndication business, Debmar-Mercury, and our home-entertainment business, which includes not only the sales of the film product, but our direct-to-video business as well. So we have quite a few businesses and when one isn’t performing exactly right, hopefully the others will pick it up, almost like a sports team. Of course, there is the library, which from the beginning, has always been critical. Michael [Burns, Lionsgate’s vice chairman] and I talk all the time about how having that evergreen cash helps pay people’s salaries and covers our operating cash needs even at times when some of our businesses aren’t performing.That library also allows us to have a $340 million credit facility. That gives us a lot of room to operate, particularly in a downturn. The last piece I would mention is that, unlike virtually all the other independents, we’re a public company, and that gives us a lot of options to raise capital and do it in a lot of different ways.You may remember that a couple of years ago we did a high-yield offering. While it was reasonably expensive money, it has allowed us to be in a very strong financial position going forward. We may have been a bit prescient about the recession. First of all, over the last couple years, after the TV Guide Network acquisition, we didn’t start any other 70

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new corporate acquisitions other than to continue growing EPIX [the premium channel operated with Viacom and MGM]. Secondly, we started Tiger Gate, but rather than solely fund the negative cash flow ourselves, we brought in the Saban Capital Group as a partner. The third thing we did was to continue to really keep an eye on overhead. And the last thing we did for fiscal 2010 was to cut back our theatrical slate. In 2009 it was 15 or 16 films, and we cut it back to ten. So we did a number of things to preserve cash and to be sensitive to the fact that the consumer wasn’t going to be spending too much discretionary income, certainly not as he or she was spending before. Those are the ways that we built our company to resist the downturns and what we did specifically in this last recession. WS: Lionsgate has always been lean and mean, so to speak, but in these past few years, how have you been able to watch or even cut costs while still getting quality on the screen—both theatrical and television screens? FELTHEIMER: We cut our corporate cash overhead by about 8 percent last year, which reflected good cost discipline based on the fact that our business was growing. Our overhead this year will be less than 7 percent of our projected revenue. So we start with cost reduction on the corporate side. On the creative side, the question is, how do we make quality films and television in a difficult period of time and keep our costs down? In terms of our theatrical business, people tend to forget that about half of our slate consists of acquisitions and negative pick-ups, so we know going in how much those films are going to cost, and we have a good sense of how much we will spend to market them. Both The Expendables and The Last Exorcism were acquisitions, and they were very, very efficient spends for us. Part of the advantage is that we do more targeted films. We can produce a lot of that branded entertainment for a little bit less, and we can market them a little bit more efficiently than a major studio release that is trying to appeal to a broad audience. On the movie side, it’s that old adage that you never know where your next hit is going to come from. That means that we need to have enough times at bat and have a diversified portfolio and keep the risk low on a per-picture basis. That gives us a shot at having hits and creating franchises. For every movie we make, whether it’s horror, our specialty films like Precious and Crash, our action films like The Expendables or a thriller like The Next Three Days, we try as much as possible—and certainly there are exceptions—to know what primary audience we’re going after. If we can’t identify the audience then, at the end of the day it’s usually not a picture we’re even going to try to acquire or produce. If you look at the Tyler Perry movies, the 3D animated Alpha and Omega, Kick Ass, The Expendables, The Last Exorcism, we were very clear who those audiences were and we didn’t try to fool ourselves into thinking they were

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Cheers!: Running Wilde is Lionsgate’s new comedy for FOX.

four-quadrant pictures. We knew that they were basically two-quadrant pictures.We knew whom we were targeting and that allowed us to keep our marketing costs a little bit lower. Of course, we produce a lot of both films and television. In our television production business, we’re fairly flexible about where we shoot and how we Men of action: The Expendables, featuring a slew of action-movie stars, among them Sylvester shoot. On every single Stallone and Jason Statham, was one of the biggest hits of the summer movie season. television show we start with the philosophy that most of our risk gets covered going 100-episode orders at a time for those shows because in, whether it’s through tax credits, international sales or they’re working for a specific audience. It’s about makour very strong home-entertainment revenues. Our team ing great original television, but it’s also about being has proved on Mad Men, Weeds and a number of our other very clear who the audience is for different shows.You shows that they’re the best in the business at exploiting telecan only build a profitable model, as in any business, when you know your audience. vision shows on DVD. So from both the cost and revenue side of the television business, we try to take out as much of the risk as we can. WS: Tell us about Tiger Gate. FELTHEIMER: It’s still very early days for Tiger Gate. It WS: Shows like Mad Men and Weeds have set the bar so high follows a pretty simple philosophy that I have, which is now, how does that challenge your team to do even better? first you’ve got to look for an opportunity. In this case FELTHEIMER: I’ve had a strong feeling going back to we looked at the growth in the pay-television market The Wonder Years and continuing all the way through in Asia. We saw that there was a void in the offering of Mad Men that “me, too” television doesn’t work. But I’m branded channels and we decided, “Great, we’ve got an not a snob about what makes the best television, opportunity here to fill that void with an Asian action whether that first show is the first Survivor, the first The channel and a horror/thriller channel.” Secondly, we Biggest Loser, the first American Idol, or the first Mad Men bet on talent. I was in business with William Pfeiffer, or Weeds. It’s copycat television that doesn’t work.You’re the CEO of Tiger Gate, for many years at Sony. He ran always challenging yourself and your executives to figure Asia for us, and he’s a real entrepreneur. Finally, we have a great partner in Saban Capital Group. Our distribution out what’s the next thing. Frankly, I’m every bit as excited about Tyler Perry’s House of Payne and Meet is on track right now.We have on the air pretty much on schedule and now it’s about getting great distribution. the Browns as I am about Mad Men and Weeds.We’re getting groups of We’re able to help supply great content in the horror/thriller area, and I think we’re in very good shape. WS: How are TV Guide Network, FEARnet and EPIX performing? FELTHEIMER: All of them follow a simple philosophy— we want to create channels in areas that we know well with target audiences that we know well.These channels all follow that philosophy.We’re excited about the October 1 launch of the linear component of FEARnet. It has performed very well in terms of its VOD and Internet presence, but it’s really important for advertisers that we have a linear channel. We’re excited that Peter Block is back as president and general manager of FEARnet. He’s one of the top guys in the whole horror/thriller genre. We and Sony together control so much content in the area and can supply both content and creative relationships, like the one with Sam Raimi, whose Ghost House Pictures label is 72

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doing its second original production series for the channel. We’ve got a good rollout plan, and we’re targeting an audience that we know extremely well. At EPIX, the big news recently was our deal with Netflix, reported in the media at nearly $1 billion over five years. When we started EPIX a few years ago, we bet that major studios like Lionsgate, Paramount and MGM should control the pay-television window as much as possible. That’s going to be important as we start looking at new windows and variable pricing for these new windows.This is going to be an important strategic and financial asset for us. It will allow us the flexibility to do some things that all the other studios are going to want to do as well. We got TV Guide at a very, very good price. People don’t realize how significant and valuable its TVGuide.com online business is.And we are excited about our fall season. We’ve got Curb Your Enthusiasm, Weeds, which obviously we were able to supply and is performing extremely well, and Ugly Betty, as well as a lot of other programming. We’ve got new carriage deals with Comcast and Charter and we’re negotiating a number of others. The most important part of our expanded distribution footprint is that we’re migrating the channel to a full-screen product on all of the cable systems. Having a full-screen product to display all of our new content is going to be really important to advertisers going forward.

WS: You’re going to MIPCOM to receive the Personality of the Year award. What does this award mean to you? FELTHEIMER: What I found interesting when I went back and looked at the people who received this award before—Gustavo Cisneros, Gerhard Zeiler, Ted Turner, Leslie Moonves and Sumner Redstone, among others— was that almost all of them were broadcaster-based. And I thought, I went to MIPCOM every year for twentysome years.What’s interesting about this year’s award for me and why I’m very appreciative of it is that so many of the people going to MIPTV and MIPCOM are producers and distributors of content and, frankly, salespeople, and that’s how I see myself. I’m a salesman representing our content. The people at MIPCOM are people who have crafted content, have figured out how to produce it and sell it, not just in one place but in more than 100 different territories and to many different media. And I thought, “These are really my peers.” So many of them are people who do what I do, so I’m very gratified that they chose to give this award to me and I’m excited about it. It’s one of the few times my wife has actually said, “I’m going with you,” which will probably make me more nervous! I’m appreciative to MIPCOM and the Reed MIDEM organization, and I’m appreciative that she’s coming with me!

LIONSGATE_FELTH_WS_2010_Layout 1 9/17/10 11:36 AM Page 1

Congratulations to our

Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Jon Feltheimer MIPCOM 2010 Personality of the Year

from all of us at the Lionsgate family

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THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS FROM HOLLYWOOD BY ANNA CARUGATI

A World of Choice

MENENDEZ: We are in a very

fortunate position to have amazing talent behind and in front of the cameras on our shows, so it’s difficult to single out just a few. However, while we’ve had many global successes over the years, some notable scripted titles include House, Heroes, Monk and the series that make up the Law & Order brand.

NBC Universal’s Belinda Menendez Between the new dramas and comedies produced for NBC’s re-vamped prime-time schedule, classic shows and some of the hottest hits in the U.S. cable market, Belinda Menendez, the president of NBC Universal International Television Distribution, has a wide variety of programming to offer buyers at MIPCOM. She talks about the international appeal of this diverse slate.

WS: During the economic down-

turn, did broadcasters show a greater willingness to acquire high-quality finished U.S. shows that had already worked well around the world, rather than produce homegrown shows? MENENDEZ: In a tough economic climate, buyers are absolutely challenged to be creative and smart with their acquisitions budgets. They understand that, in order to reach the broadest audience possible, they need to strike a balance between local and acquired shows. How a series has performed in the U.S. is certainly taken under consideration, but it is ultimately the quality of the series and its potential local appeal that drive the final decision. Series produced in the U.S. can offer state-of-the-art production values, high-profile talent, innovative and actionpacked storytelling, all of which are appealing to both buyers and audiences abroad. WS: What new opportunities are you seeing in the

international market? MENENDEZ: DTT absolutely provides robust opportu-

nities to license a significant amount of programming overseas, [because] there is a growing appetite for U.S. titles as these outlets continue to mature. The evolution of the new-media space is also affording burgeoning opportunities to drive sales, as we’re seeing a shift in the types of product being pursued. For example, new-media outlets have traditionally been more focused on feature films, but are increasingly embracing both scripted and non-scripted programming, as well. WS: Which have been some of your best-selling shows

over the past few years? 76

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WS: NBCU is in a unique position this season—given the prime-time programming changes at NBC—to have quite a number of new shows. Which ones have already created a buzz among buyers? MENENDEZ: This year’s L.A. Screenings was one of our best ever, in terms of the amount of programming we have to offer, as well as client response. What also puts us in a unique position is the breadth of our portfolio, which includes scripted network series, cable series and reality series, in addition to news, specials and locally produced programming. Again, it’s difficult to single out shows when we have such a rich mix of product, but I can tell you we have had tremendous response to series including The Event, Love Bites, Covert Affairs and Outlaw. As our new series begin to premiere in the U.S., we anticipate even more interest across the board. WS: Not much is said about library product, but aren’t there some shows that continue to sell well over and over again? MENENDEZ: You’re absolutely right, not much is really said about library programming, but it remains an evergreen overseas. The popularity of library product abroad speaks volumes to the quality of U.S. series and their enduring appeal. Most people who are not familiar with our business would be surprised to know that shows including Kojak, Magnum, P.I., Murder, She Wrote, Quincy and, of course, Columbo, have slots on TV schedules all over the world and continue to perform well. WS: What kind of after-sale promotional support do you offer your clients? MENENDEZ: We have invested in utilizing the latest technologies to provide our clients with immediate access to extensive and innovative digital promotional assets. Additionally, we have a marketing and communications team based in Los Angeles and London that takes a very customized approach to post-sale promotional support. They work very closely with their client counterparts to brainstorm ideas and offer guidance, including a review of U.S. promotional campaigns to identify how they can potentially be adapted for a local audience. Of course, talent access plays an enormous role in our support efforts, including bespoke promos, set visits and personal appearance tours abroad.While our team offers myriad ideas and support materials, we ultimately leave it to the local experts to determine the best strategies for their markets.

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A LOOK AT THE BUSINESS OF TELEVISION BY ANNA CARUGATI

Taking Care of Business

through the management team that we brought on board, with the creative DNA of Endemol. In doing so we offer a fresh approach to sports entertainment, which we believe delivers great content across TV and online.We provide a wide range of services and products to our clients and we work with some of the leading players in the industry. This includes the Dutch Premier League, the International Rugby Board, motor racing organizations and football clubs like Manchester City, Ajax Amsterdam and Inter Milan. The services range from covering live events, providing channel management, digital productions, online content, social media, documentaries, sports entertainment formats, magazine series and general syndication. We’ve secured some very significant deals, particularly in football, with organizations such as the Abu Dhabi Media Company, for whom we produce and manage programming across three HD Premier League and general sports channels. It’s quite a wide and varied universe of clients we work with and we believe that we have very strong partnerships with all of them. So far it’s been a great ride.

Endemol’s Ynon Kreiz Since joining Endemol two and a half years ago as chairman and CEO, Ynon Kreiz has led the company through a period of significant growth. He has broadened the range of its activities by acquiring production companies in numerous countries and setting up a diversified sports division.

WS: In your international

growth, what has been the strategy behind buying production companies? Are there certain territories you are looking at now where you think you need to establish more? KREIZ: Our growth strategy has been a combination of organic activities and acquisitions.When it comes to acquisitions we’re looking at companies that have a particular expertise that will either strengthen what we already do or put us in a new area of activity. In all cases, they have to be creative, have a proven track record and be the best in their domain. If you look at the acquisitions we’ve done, each company is a very unique asset and there is nothing else like it in its space: Southern Star is the largest drama producer in Australia and one of the world’s largest distributors of English-speaking shows; Tiger Aspect is one of the U.K.’s largest and most prolific producers of drama and scripted comedy; Darlow Smithson is an award-winning factual producer;Wiedemann & Berg in Germany is led by the producers behind the Oscarwinning film The Lives of Others;WeiT Media is managed by one of Russia’s most successful independent producers, Timur Weinstein, and already has 16 local scripted projects for this year; Underground is one of the leading telenovela producers in Argentina; and Authentic Entertainment is one of the most successful producers of reality factual and documentary programs for cable networks in America.This group of companies is varied both in terms of geographic location and business profile, and each of them is very unique in what they do. WS: What has been the strategy behind building Ende-

mol Sport? KREIZ: Endemol Sport has been a great story for us. In

its first year Endemol Sport has already broken even and is now regarded as the fastest-growing sports-media company in Europe.The idea is to combine our sport expertise, 78

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WS: Endemol has three very big and important shareholders. What is your relationship with them and is it difficult to keep them all on the same page, so to speak, when you are planning new things? KREIZ: Our shareholders are different from one another, but each is a leader of their domain, just like the companies that are part of Endemol. Goldman Sachs is the preeminent investment bank in the world and their private-equity practice is one of the best in the business. Mediaset is one of the most successful broadcasting groups in the world. Cyrte is one of the most prolific investors in global media. So each shareholder has very strong skills in their respective area and we work with them where they can help us.They are extremely supportive and I couldn’t be more positive about the relationships with them and their commitment to the company. WS: How did your previous experience at a venturecapital firm help inform the way you now lead Endemol? KREIZ: There is nothing that can really prepare you to be at the head of a company like Endemol. There is nothing else like it. You work with some of the most talented and creative people in our industry within a company that is a world leader. While you have to defend your leading position, you are continually looking to expand. This is a market that is changing very dynamically and we have to react and adapt and constantly be at the top of our game to remain competitive and successful. It’s a never-ending challenge but every morning when I wake up I remind myself that it’s a piece of cake compared to my wife[’s challenge:] she has to manage four kids under the age of 6!

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WS: How are you using social media to create buzz and

KREIZ: In some ways it seems as if I’ve been with the com-

promote shows? KREIZ: In some situations it’s a marketing component and in others it’s a commercial proposition, but in all cases it’s got to be a key part of the programming proposition.

pany for two weeks, as it’s gone by so quickly, and in other ways it feels like it’s been ten years because so much has happened. I would say that what’s exciting about the company is grasping the broad spectrum of activities and the advantages you have as a group when you connect all the dots of the Endemol platform.The challenges are to maintain that, remain competitive, be ahead of the game and continue to build on something that already is so successful. For more fromYnon Kreiz, see page 202.

WS: You have been chairman and CEO a little over two years. What have been the greatest challenges and what have been the greatest surprises?

Philippe Maigret The executive VP of acquisitions for North America at the Endemol Group is charged with expanding Endemol’s program portfolio. WS: How important is scripted programming to Endemol World-

wide Distribution’s business? MAIGRET: Scripted programming is an extremely important genre

for the group and for Endemol Worldwide Distribution. When we look at our global scripted business across all markets, Endemol produced about 2,000 hours last year and that is expected to grow significantly in 2011. We are exploiting about 100 to 130 scripted concepts globally, quite a broad portfolio around the world. Scripted programming is a key segment in Endemol’s production strategy.

Jeremy Gold, who is head of scripted programming in David Goldberg’s team at Endemol USA, has been developing a number of projects. He is executive producing the Hell on Wheels pilot for AMC and eOne. And in my role, I complement the activity at Endemol USA by further building our U.S. scripted portfolio through acquisitions, cofinancing, co-production, any alternative model to traditional development. My role very much relies on the distribution businesses that Endemol has built over the past 18 months. In fact, Tom Toumazis [Endemol’s chief commercial officer] hired me once he had the commercial infrastructure in place to exploit this portfolio, to monetize the rights that we would be acquiring through Endemol Worldwide Distribution for television and home-video distribution, and through Endemol Worldwide Brands for consumer products, games, music publishing and gambling. We look at the scripted portfolio as a key growth driver for our distribution businesses as well as Endemol USA and the Endemol group. WS: What have been some of your recent acquisitions? MAIGRET: We have acquired the international distribution rights to

Hot in Cleveland, a sitcom from TV Land. We have announced the acquisition of a Canadian procedural crime drama called Endgame that was ordered by Canwest. It’s from Avrum Jacobson, the creator of The Listener and produced by Thunderbird Films, a company I’ve wanted to be in business with for a while. It’s a wonderful opportunity for us to work together. David Frazee from Flashpoint is the creative director of Endgame, a very original procedural drama, with a very strong male lead. We have also acquired the international rights to The Haunting Hour, a half-hour live-action fantasy series for 8- to 12-year-olds that was ordered by The Hub and created by Dan Angel and Billy Brown, the team behind Goosebumps. It’s based on R.L. Stein’s very successful collection of books. The deal that is going to make the biggest amount of noise, because it is very much a long-term partnership, is a co-production and international distribution partnership with a company called Ensemble, formed by Tony To, who is a four-time Emmy Award winner, most recently for The Pacific. Tony produced From the Earth to the Moon, Band of Brothers and The Pacific. He also directed an episode of The Pacific and is a very accomplished filmmaker.Tony and his team have developed a number of really interesting drama projects over the past couple of years, perfectly designed for pay television in the U.S., and will prove to be attractive to international broadcasters: smart, original, high-end one-hour dramas as well as mini-series projects—very much in line with the type of material that Tony has become renowned for producing. I cannot wait to announce our first project!

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A LOOK AT INNOVATION IN THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY BY ANNA CARUGATI

Successful Partnerships

FremantleMedia’s Tony Cohen With a vast array of hit formats and a library of some 20,000 hours of finished programming across all genres, FremantleMedia Group can satisfy just about any broadcaster’s needs. CEO Tony Cohen is keen on extending the viewing experience beyond the TV screen to the new-media platforms consumers use most.

WS: FremantleMedia offers broadcasters formats as well

as a huge catalogue of finished products. During the downturn did you see some broadcasters opt for finished products, rather than investing in a production? COHEN: What we saw was the demand for the big brands Got Talent, Idols and The X Factor—the really big shows— didn’t really decline at all during the last year or two. It was the exact reverse actually; there was a huge appetite for them. We also saw there was really a quite significant growth in the volume of the whole range of material we distribute in tape [as finished product]: talent-driven travel, lifestyle, cooking, all of that did extremely well. I suppose the area where we saw some falling off was in the middleof-the-range factual programming at the less expensive end of the market. There was less appetite for the less expensive end of the market, but the big shows continued strongly and there was a noticeable increase in appetite for the taped material that we distribute. WS: FremantleMedia has established relationships

with a number of producers and rights owners.What advantages have you drawn from these relationships? COHEN: The primary goal of working with producers around the world is to build brands—and it’s not just the show, it’s all the other ways consumers can enjoy a piece of entertainment and a piece of intellectual property. The work we do with partners comprises everything from financing, coproduction, content development, working with talent, maximizing the commercial opportunities, distributing people’s rights and exploiting them. So there is an enormous range of things we do with producers and writers. A lot of producers work with us because of our international network and our ability to build brands and commercialize them. Our [FremantleMedia] Enterprises division, which exports programming and builds brands with people, works with everybody from Jamie Oliver the chef and Martha Stewart to Spike TV and Discovery. We also work with brands that are traveling

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the world, such as MasterChef, as well as The Biggest Loser from Shine Productions. We work with an enormous range of channels, producers and rights holders, and not only in television by the way; we also represent rights holders in non-television properties, too. And the reason for that is that they’ve seen what we’re able to do on a global basis and they know that we take care of what they have. We make sure that they get the best exhibition and treatment and they can trust us. WS: How has FremantleMedia been extending the TV viewing experience onto new-media platforms? COHEN: It’s true to say that FremantleMedia has been a pioneer in using new-media platforms and new technology to extend our relationship with audiences beyond the primary TV transmission. And as you rightly say, the reason we do that is because people are finding new ways to consume entertainment and therefore we want to follow our audience and our consumers. It’s a very big field, but the main things we’ve done include extending the key elements of a format onto other platforms. Examples of that would be what we’ve done with our iconic game shows like Family Feud. Over the last few years we’ve done SMS games, we have console games, we’ve got iPhone and iPad apps and I believe that to date it has been one of the most successful brands in social gaming—it’s had a dazzling career since it’s been up on Facebook.And we will continue to invest in the casual games and social-gaming opportunities that our game shows and other formats give us. We extend the live experience around our talent shows using social media. There is an enormous amount that goes on around The X Factor and Got Talent and Idols, but a couple of examples would be the America’s Got Talent virtual audition which has run on both MySpace and on YouTube over the last few years. In fact, for some of our shows, in the U.K for example, on The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, we actually have a dedicated socialmedia editor who manages all the Facebook and Twitter accounts. I think we were one of the first to do that. Of course, we distribute our content through ondemand platforms. We were the first producer to do a global deal with YouTube. Not only do we have channels, which we operate together with YouTube, but we also offer long-form content—Baywatch from our library is available for the U.K. There is an enormous range of other things we do on websites, particularly now with catch-up TV and the enhanced materials we provide for shows like MasterChef.We are excited about all these possibilities. We see business models emerging now both in pay and micro-pay, as well as in advertising.

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Picture perfect: FME’s broad portfolio of finished programming includes the popular Bravo series Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. WS: Advertising is coming back in some territories, but do

you think broadcasters will ever return to the level of investment in programming that they had prior to the crisis? COHEN: It’s clearly true that advertising revenue is coming back strongly in some territories. We’ve seen that reflected in increased programming budgets. Whether it’s going to go back to the levels it used to be, I don’t know. The received wisdom on this is that, with structural change, advertising revenue will leak away from the traditional freeto-air broadcasters and go online. But it seems to me that free-to-air broadcasters in particular still have that very precious asset, which is they can get mass audiences. And I’m sure that will continue to be very valuable. As far as FremantleMedia is concerned, we are not assuming that it’s going to come back to where it was before. It would be great if it does, but as a prudent business, we are not going to assume that. WS: Nowadays, because of the caution and the smaller

programming budgets, what does a format need in order to travel to a number of territories? COHEN: There is a universal set of requirements for something to travel and I don’t think it’s changed very much in the years in which this market has established itself. A format has got to be great entertainment, clearly formatted and well structured. At its best, it’s got to be something that will play in different forms, so it can be a daily, a weekly or a strip, and in terms of sales, if it’s got a demonstrable track record already, if it’s been sold and been a success in the U.K. and the U.S., for example, it will travel the world pretty consistently. And, of course, the FremantleMedia network is built on that trend. In 2010 we’ve been responsible for three out of the top 11 traveling formats so far this year, which are Got Talent, Take Me Out and Password, which I think is more than anybody else. Take Me Out is traveling extremely well, as is Got Talent. The market is clear about what it wants. What you have to do, which is easy to say but hard to do, is also clear. America’s Got Talent is NBC’s number one entertainment series at the moment and Britain’s Got Talent is again the U.K.’s highest-rated entertainment

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show this year. We are seeing formats of entertainment really do work, particularly in prime time. WS: Next year in the U.S. there will be two big shows, American Idol and The X Factor, both airing on FOX. How will you ensure that both shows have the production and promotion resources they need and what have you learned from similar situations in European markets? COHEN: We have strong resources to produce and promote the television shows in the U.S. We bring focus to the nurturing of all of the programs that we do and we dedicate teams to them individually to ensure that they are going to be successful. American Idol and The X Factor will air at different times of the year. They are both fantastic formats.They’ve both enjoyed huge success around the world and we believe it’s great that U.S. viewers will be able to enjoy both of these shows next year. When you ask how do you do a couple of major shows on the same network and ensure that they are both a success, I look around the world and see that on ITV in the U.K. we do Britain’s Got Talent and we do The X Factor at different times of the year—they are both humongous successes. In Holland we do Got Talent and The X Factor on RTL 4—both enormous successes. On M6 in France we do Got Talent and Idols at different times of the year—both big successes. So this is all about being really dedicated and passionate and focused on the shows. WS: Where do you see opportunities for growth in the

next couple of years? COHEN: There are an enormous number of growth

opportunities. They are not so much geographic, as opportunities in the areas we were just looking at: online pay and micro-pay, working closer with advertisers as well as producing for U.S. cable channels and children’s programming. We announced our Children’s and Family Entertainment division last year. To be honest with you, we see an enormous amount of opportunity in the world and it begins to expand the range of what we can do at FremantleMedia, which is good—as the world changes, we are changing, too.

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global nets

CHANNEL HOPPING THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS OF CABLE AND SATELLITE BY ANNA CARUGATI

Conquering the World

FIC’s David Haslingden Fox International Channels (FIC), owned by News Corporation, operates 183 wholly and majority-owned pay-TV channels, and their related online, nonlinear and mobile extensions, across Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The portfolio, in 35 languages, reaches over 300 million unique subscribing households worldwide. David Haslingden, the CEO of FIC and National Geographic Channels Worldwide, explains the reasons for the channels’ success.

WS: As viewers watch programming online, are digi-

tal brands becoming as important as linear channels? HASLINGDEN: No, I don’t think they are. The industry

seems to be coalescing around the viewpoint that the way that linear and nonlinear channels operate in the market needs to be very carefully coordinated and, ideally, commonly branded. The reason for that is there is incredible opportunity for customer confusion, which is bad for the customers, bad for the platforms and bad for the programmers.What is gradually falling into place, and obviously you see this in the U.S., is that the linear channel programmers and the platforms are working closely together to ensure that the compilation of the linear and nonlinear products are appropriately coordinated and managed.When that’s achieved, you don’t see an unhealthy cannibalization of linear channel viewership by nonlinear viewership. WS: FIC has production facilities in Colombia, Argentina and Italy. Do you have plans for acquiring more? HASLINGDEN: Yes, we are looking to have more in other parts of the world, but opportunistically. It’s important to have production companies because as our channels evolve in each market, their ability to successfully utilize locally produced programming increases. So having production companies in important markets gives us the ability to produce shows for ourselves [and] also gives us in-house knowledge about the local production market and opportunities. You can look at the U.S. as a fully mature and evolved media market in which organizations like Fox or National Geographic are vertically integrated through the distribution and production sides of the business.We hope that in our major markets we will gradually evolve to that kind of mature and vertically integrated position. So that is why we bought the production companies in the first place, and that’s why opportunistically we would look to buy more. 86

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WS: Tell us about the series The Walking Dead. HASLINGDEN: As traditional windowing of program-

ming across different categories of media—broadcast, pay TV, syndication,VOD and Internet—has been collapsing, channels need to be more actively controlling their content. We’ve decided to partner with AMC on their new, highly anticipated drama series, The Walking Dead. This is going to be an amazing show, based on Robert Kirkman’s best-selling graphic novel by the same name. It is produced by Frank Darabont, who wrote and directed The Shawshank Redemption, and by Gale Anne Hurd, who produced the Terminator movies. It’s an absolutely A-category production team and we hope that this show is going to be as good as AMC’s great hit Mad Men. It is a franchise that FIC will control outside the U.S. and Canada and we are doing an unprecedented global launch for it, premiering the series within hours of AMC’s U.S. launch, quasi-simultaneously in about 120 countries. WS: Despite the difficult economic times, has FIC’s diversified bouquet of channels been attractive to advertisers? HASLINGDEN: Over the last three years, it’s been a tough time for economies around the world. During this period, advertisers have focused on the value they derive from their media buys and that has really helped pay-TV channels. Our cost per targeted GRP [gross rating point] and our effectiveness as an advertising medium is superior to the broadcast businesses where many advertisers are spending a large proportion of their money. In a lot of markets, this downturn actually helped us because it brought us clients who traditionally have only spent a very, very small portion, if any, of their media spend on pay channels. With the economies improving in many markets around the world, advertising spend is much more buoyant and customers are staying with us. So we are seeing very good yearon-year advertising increases, almost without exception, in our markets around the world.You are right in saying that advertisers see us as a well-resourced group.We have a very large portfolio of channels across a wide range of programming categories and niches, and in pretty much all cases with very strong brands that resonate with audiences of those niches.That is very important because it means that our sales teams have very good relationships with the core ad agencies and customers, and we are building up a track record of providing them with good products and good advertising ideas and solutions, and, as a result, our business is growing. For more from David Haslingden, see page 362.

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EXPLORING THE EXPANSION STRATEGIES OF LEADING COMPANIES BY ANNA CARUGATI

Reaching New Audiences

be representative of how we want people to relate to and experience the brand.

AETN’s Nancy Dubuc

WS: Certainly adding a strong female target to the

When A&E Television Networks (AETN) announced last year it was acquiring Lifetime Networks, Nancy Dubuc took on a whole new programming remit and audience demographic. Alongside managing the HISTORY brand, Dubuc is now charged with breathing new life into Lifetime, a top TV brand for women that of late has been feeling the pressure of competition from a number of other channels. Dubuc, the president and general manager of HISTORY and Lifetime, is confident that the lessons she and her team learned while propelling HISTORY into the top five cable channels in the U.S. can be successfully applied to Lifetime.

mix of what AETN can offer advertisers can only work to your advantage. DUBUC: Of course, it’s a beautiful fit inside the portfolio. We’re very, very fortunate.We’re not like many of our competitors where there is a tremendous amount of overlap between the channels and therefore there is cannibalization.We have very clear swim lanes here! HISTORY feeds a very hard-to-reach upscale male audience. A&E is one of the strongest adult networks in all of cable. And Lifetime is the strongest female brand in all of cable. WS: Despite the recession, last year was not a bad year for

HISTORY. How have you been working with advertisers? WS: What can you tell us about your plans for Lifetime? DUBUC: It’s very early days for me on Lifetime but I can

say that Lifetime has the same brand gravitas that many of the AETN portfolio brands have. It’s a pioneer in cable much the way that A&E and HISTORY were, so I see it fitting incredibly well into the overall portfolio of this company. I have no doubt in my mind that we will do to Lifetime what we did to A&E and then what we did to HISTORY. Lifetime is tailor-made for it and it’s a brand that women connect to. It resonates with women and has for decades. There are some programming challenges at Lifetime, but that’s where the teams here shine, when they are given a challenge to come up with creative, innovative, entertaining programs that speak to the audience that is relevant to that brand.That is a process; it’s a creative process. We’re looking closely at how we express that brand and I can’t speak to that yet, but I’m hoping that by the end of the year we will have a very strong handle on the way we talk about the brand, the way we are going to visualize our brand on air, and the kinds of programs that will

DUBUC: We had one of our best years ever.This is a real

testament to Abbe Raven, AETN’s president and CEO. Throughout a very difficult economic year, we stayed focused on our priority, which was investing in our core programming. We needed to maintain those investments because we were going to come out of this downturn and if you don’t provide viewers with the kind of programming that they’ve come to expect, then you really can find yourself in a bad place when times are turning around. She led the [way], biting the bullet when times were difficult and we are [seeing many of the] benefits now. Our ratings success last year helped carry us through a very, very difficult year and we are seeing a lot of share strength in the market right now because of our success last year and our continued success this year. No longer can you look at HISTORY and see it as an anomaly. It has earned its place in that top tier of cable networks and not only its place as a top-rated network, but a brand that advertisers want to be associated with. For more from Nancy Dubuc, see page 364.

Fashion forward: Project Runway, now in its third season on Lifetime, is a key element of the femaleskewing network’s programming grid. 90

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CELEBRATING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LEADING MEDIA COMPANIES BY ANNA CARUGATI

Kim Williams Since its launch in 1995, the Australian pay-TV platform FOXTEL has remained firmly committed to providing its subscribers choice and constant innovation. As a result, it has become the leading subscription television service in the country, offering linear channels via cable and satellite as well as mobile and online services. FOXTEL, owned by Telstra Corporation, News Corporation and Consolidated Media Holdings Limited, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year. CEO Kim Williams talks about the platform’s success.

WS: What have been the main strengths of FOXTEL’s offering? WILLIAMS: We’ve always been a very resilient business, but we certainly had a very difficult establishment period. I think we learned during that time that the secret to any potential success in this area of media delivery is to be very attentive to consumers. We have to listen to them very, very carefully in order to shape our offering and to ensure that we have a relentless commitment to innovation and creative transformation. In our instance, we started with a 20-channel cable offering back in 1995 and today we have a little over 200 channels on cable and satellite. We also have 33 channels on mobile phones. We deliver 26 channels to Virgin Blue jet aircraft all across Australia and we offer very comprehensive services that support our personal video recorders (PVRs), so that from any smartphone 92

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or from the Internet, you can look at our electronic program guide and record any program that is there over the next 14 days by sending up an instruction for your PVR to remember it and record it. All of this has come about through a huge amount of consistent devotion to innovation and investment. In the course of providing that innovation we’ve been very careful to ensure that all of our technical development is matched by a very close attention to the quality of content that we are offering. Consumers are primarily interested in what is unique about our service, and that is the content we provide and the manner in which we provide it. We have offered constant innovations in sports, drama, general entertainment, music, children’s, news, documentaries and other varieties of television, along with a lot of original Australian content. We have also developed many new fresh interactive applications that give our offering a real sense of differentiation to a FOXTEL subscriber. WS: When you decide to roll out a new service, is that done because you want to keep a step ahead of your subscribers or is it in reaction to what you are hearing from them? WILLIAMS: We are constantly processing information from our subscribers. First of all, we conduct several hundred thousand incoming phone calls with our customer base every month, which is a terrific learning opportunity. It allows us to find out what they like and what they would like to see improved. Secondly, we do very active outbound research with our customers so that we have clear objective information about what they think of our content delivery, our technology products and of simple things like the quality of the installation service that they receive, or the quality of any kind of technical support and care that we offer them. We run, as a matter of course, very disciplined follow-up with a whole series of questions [for] customers.

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There is a delicate balance between the push from us and the pull from consumers in the way in which our products evolve and are shaped. We do not deploy anything without researching it with our customers,

both our existing customers and prospective customers. We very carefully manage a body of research as to what channels might interest new customers, what channels might fill the perceived gaps in our existing offering and what kind of additional services customers might be seeking from us. WS: Have products like HD or the

PVR helped drive subscriptions? WILLIAMS: Oh, very much so.

Our PVR penetration—and we call our PVR the iQ—has now passed 65 percent of our customer base. So it has been a particularly important tool in expanding the quality of what we offer and in giving a transformative experience to what we offer our customers. HD is another area that we have targeted for general leadership in the Australian market. We launched HD in June 2008 and now we have passed 20-percent penetration. It’s an area that we will continue to expand, so that during the course of the current financial year we will see our HD offering increase to about 22 24hours-a-day HD channels and our first stand-alone 3D channel in addition to that. WS: Tell us about the 3D channel. WILLIAMS: We’re launching a

3D channel and also a push-todisc 3D product in the early part of 2011.We’ve already done about 18 3D broadcasts of major sporting fixtures for Australia.We did a couple of major sports broadcasts in June with the last game of the Australian football team, the Socceroos, before they went to South Africa for the FIFA World Cup. That was a friendly game against New Zealand. We also broadcast the finals of the French Open [tennis tournament] in 3D. We then retransmitted from our colleagues at the Special Broadcasting Service in Australia all of their 3D transmissions from the World Cup. I think that involved 16 separate 3D broadcasts.

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1995 FOXTEL launches on cable with 20 channels.

1999 The offering expands to 31 channels and satellite distribution. 2002 FOXTEL reaches 45 channels following the completion of the FOXTEL-Optus Content Supply Agreement.

2004 FOXTEL digital service launches and gives Australian viewers the choice of more than 150 digital channels.

2005 The FOXTEL iQ, a fully integrated PVR, is introduced to the market. 2006 Telstra Mobile FOXTEL offers 33 channels and is one of the world’s most substantial mobile offerings. 2006 FOXTEL Live2Air launches, providing 24 channels of live FOXTEL programming to the Virgin Blue jet fleet.

2008 FOXTEL launches its high definition service with five dedicated 24-hour HD channels—BBC HD, Discovery HD, National Geographic Channel HD, FOX Sports HD and ESPN HD—plus Australian television premiere blockbuster movies available immediately through the FOXTEL Box Office HD On Demand service. First 3D transmission takes place in the FOXTEL laboratory.

2009 FOXTEL launches FOXTEL Next Generation, which offers customers the increased choice of 30 new channels; new navigation features such as iSuggest, which enhances navigation with 200 fresh movie and program suggestions for iQ recording every week; and Record Me, which allows for recording shows directly from an on-air program promotion; the most comprehensive HD offering in Australia of 15 HD channels; and Sky News Local, a dedicated local news service for each major Australian capital city.

We have been doing legwork on 3D broadcasting since 2008. We did our first 3D transmission in our laboratory here in December of 2008. We continued those trials through 2009 and then in 2010 we presented the first mainstream 3D broadcasts to those of our subscribers who had already acquired 3D television sets. [Consumer-electronics] manufacturers are very committed to expanding 3D transmissions and we will partner with them in that process. WS: Why was the decision to make channels available

on Xbox Live an important step for FOXTEL? WILLIAMS: In growing our company we’re always

looking to opportunities where we can provide relevant services to market segments that we have not been particularly successful with.Two of our current priorities are, on the one hand, senior citizens and on the other hand, younger audiences. Younger audiences have a very different urban and itinerant lifestyle. They [get most of their entertainment and information from the Internet], they live in apartments and move every nine to 18 months, which is clearly not well suited to a subscription-television product in a traditional mode with a set-top unit installation. Instead their lifestyle is very well suited to a product like the Xbox Live, which not only travels easily but is also part of the domestic entertainment diet of the young consumer. Therefore, we have been working with our colleagues at Microsoft to ensure that we deliver a relevant service that meets the lifestyle and general taste disposition of that younger audience. The first iteration of our Xbox Live product will have a slimmed down version of FOXTEL, which is very carefully profiled to meet the needs of this target audience that has emerged from many surveys with young adults who are in that early stage of their entertainment subscription journey. WS: As viewers have clearly shown that they prefer watching “wherever and whenever,” in what ways are you satisfying that demand from your customers?

2010 Total FOXTEL offering surpasses 200 channels. FOXTEL offers the first 3D mainstream broadcasts to subscribers with 3D-enabled TV sets. FOXTEL announces a groundbreaking partnership with Microsoft to offer around 30 FOXTEL channels over the Internet direct to customers’ television sets via Microsoft’s Xbox Live product. FOXTEL will launch services over the Internet direct to FOXTEL customers’ television sets via around 780,000 deployed Internet-enabled iQ boxes. The service will offer customers even more choice and control over their television viewing, liberating a video store of choice with hundreds of on-demand movies and television programs. FOXTEL and Telstra are working together to provide FOXTEL channels over Telstra’s T-Box.

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A big splash: FOXTEL was the broadcast home of the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games. 10/10

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milestones Home is where the content is: Selling Houses Australia, hosted by Andrew Winter, is shown on The LifeStyle Channel.

service which will provision initially about 1,500 separate movies and television programs that will be on-demand on an à la carte basis for our subscribers.That will rapidly grow to a library of somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 individual movies and television programs at any one time. We are also developing our mobile product along with some pretty sophisticated search and recommendation tools that use popular consumer ancillary devices such as the iPhone 4 and the iPad. We are genuinely enthusiastic about pad- and slate-style devices. They offer a relevant related experience to a television screen and some great possibilities in really up-to-the-minute search and recommendation functionalities. WS: The iPad was absolutely a stroke of pure genius. WILLIAMS: Yes, we are great enthusiasts of it here! WILLIAMS: We certainly see the personalization of media as being quite fundamental to its future and to successful settings for the future. We are firmly committed to making available to consumers an experience in which they get to watch what they want, when they want, and increasingly, over the device of their choosing so it’s where they want.We’re doing that through the provision of a very large body of content on the Internet. For example, we make available, at no additional charge, around 600 hours of programming that consumers can use as a catch-up service and we refresh this every week for around 38 of the channels that we offer. We are also about to offer a VOD

WS: Despite this continued propensity to view wherever and whenever, how do you see the future of television? WILLIAMS: After a colleague of mine read some articles that claimed the days of television are numbered, he said to me, “Goodness, it must be an unbelievably large number!” I’m in very great agreement with him! I think television has a very rich future because of all the media, television, particularly subscription television, has been the area where people have really adapted to a digital world and have been very responsive [to innovation]. Certainly I think most subscription television platforms have a very realistic understanding of what

“We congratulate FOXTEL on its 15th-anniversary celebration and the success it has achieved in establishing pay TV in the Australian market. Since Nat Geo launched in Australia in 1997, we have worked hand in hand with FOXTEL as our biggest partner. FOXTEL has embraced our factual networks and now carries four Nat Geo channels. As the TV landscape evolves in the coming years, National Geographic Channel will join FOXTEL’s always innovative and smart initiatives to keep growing and offering more value.” —David Haslingden, CEO, National Geographic Channels Worldwide & Fox International Channels 98

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milestones In high spirits: Spirited is an Australian drama that currently airs on the pay-TV channel W.

lectual property endeavor must have for piracy and the enablement of theft, I think we must all look at new technologies as opportunities. WS: Looking ahead 12 to 24 months,

consumers are expecting. They understand the general trajectory of consumers as they move into a much more flexible and sophisticated operating environment. The challenge is to respond to it in a way that is really relevant and attuned to consumers’ notions of value, want and need. WS: You mentioned that you are placing a lot of content on the Internet. Do you feel that the Internet is more of a friend or a foe to a service like FOXTEL? WILLIAMS: I think successful engagement with digital media demands that you must see all technologies as opportunities, not as foes. It’s tremendously important to be technology-neutral and to be always looking [for ways to offer] relevant consumer experiences that have merit both from a consumption perspective and from a spending and purchase perspective. And apart from the prevailing concern that all people in the intel-

what growth opportunities do you see for FOXTEL? WILLIAMS: I see many opportunities that will emerge with greater ranges of broadband applications. For example, there are many opportunities and challenges bringing the Internet to the television, so that a viewer can have an integrated experience with Internet-style search and recommendation functionality, but all the characteristics of broadcast-quality picture, sound and durable delivery. Clearly people bring a different mindset to computers than they do to broadcasting—they expect broadcasting to always work, whereas with computers, the audience is immensely forgiving of the computer regularly having some little glitch that requires you to reboot or to close out of something and then reopen it. People are quite unforgiving about any sort of glitch in broadcasting. So the trick will be in how we actually create that blended experience—a really agreeable and attractive customer world—that marries all of the tools that are available on the net with the quality of the picture, sound and delivery experience that one gets with broadcasting. WS: That’s not too far off, is it? WILLIAMS: No, I think it’s happening as we speak. We

are currently trialing a product that we intend to launch [this month], which blends the two pretty effectively. But blending Internet protocol hierarchies with broadcasting hierarchies is not easy. It does require a lot of patience and a lot of technical ingenuity. I think that the reward will be loyal consumers and an even better relationship with them as we forge ahead.

“I have known Kim Williams for 30 years and throughout that time he has always demonstrated true leadership and boundless energy to innovate. He’s tough but fair and a man of his word. It’s been my pleasure to work with him in many capacities and I look forward to many more years of working together.” —Mark Kaner, President Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution

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in focus

HIGHLIGHTING GAINS BY LEADING INDUSTRY PLAYERS BY ANNA CARUGATI

New Horizons

MarVista’s Fernando Szew In the seven years since it was established, MarVista Entertainment has evolved from simply selling third-party programming to producing and distributing a wide variety of genres. Known as a leading supplier of TV movies and family fare, MarVista has built on that reputation and recently struck a number of major deals, most notably, one as international distributor of the iconic children’s brand Power Rangers. CEO Fernando Szew talks about his company’s growth strategy.

WS: How did the Power Rangers

deal come about? SZEW: This is a very, very

important milestone in the growth of MarVista. It came about as a result of hard work, our reputation and relationships. You’ve heard me use this phrase before, it’s the three Ps: passion, patience and perseverance, and that’s what really led to this deal. It’s our passion for what we do, our patience for seeking the right deals for our company, and persevering on this one when the opportunity presented itself. We demonstrated that we thoroughly understood the power of the Power Rangers brand, where Haim Saban and his team at Saban Brands wanted to take the brand in its re-launch, and how we fit into their plans. WS: You not only have the rights to the 700 library

episodes of Power Rangers, but also to the new series Saban Brands will be producing. SZEW: Absolutely. It’s really monumental to participate in the re-launch, with Saban Brands responsible for all aspects of the Power Rangers brand, including the production of the new series to air on Nickelodeon in the U.S., and MarVista handling global sales. We are really excited about it, and at MIPCOM the international television marketplace will see that the Power Rangers will once again be one of the premiere brands in kids’ television. WS: Beyond your usual slate of TV movies, you now also

have a mini-series to offer buyers. Is this a new genre for you? SZEW: Yes, this is something new that we are doing and

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time and the right opportunity. We have had many discussions with our broadcast partners about the importance of the mini-series genre, and we found the perfect opportunity and the right angle to get into this business with Witches of Oz. It is key that this type of miniseries or event programming have some existing awareness with the audience, and Witches of Oz, which is based on the Wizard of Oz, is a timeless story known both domestically and internationally. It has a great cast, and brings a creative modern twist to a classic tale. WS: You have always been cautious in your business dealings, and yet during a difficult economic environment you grew your company substantially. SZEW: We are very entrepreneurial and opportunistic and, in spite of the economic difficulties, we decided to continue to invest in producing and acquiring quality product, recruit outstanding people and develop relationships with talented and creative partners, knowing that we were going to be in a much stronger position when the crisis was over. A few good examples here include our co-production with the Disney Channel on the original movie 16 Wishes, a first for MarVista even in a difficult economy; our ongoing relationship with Apartment 11, the creators of the live-action kids reality series Prank Patrol, which has become quite a hit for ABC in Australia with activeTV’s format version; and our investment in SNAP TV in Argentina. WS: What sense are you getting of the health of the international television business? SZEW: There are new sources of money from big established players that are really attempting to make important moves. One is obviously Haim Saban, whose recently launched company, Saban Brands, will not only be active in television but also in the areas of branding, licensing and merchandising.These companies are leveraging not just money but true knowledge of content. This type of investment is going to be much healthier for the industry than some of the funding that was happening in the earlier part of the decade, when deals were more financially driven than content driven. This new, strategic approach is going to help the development of our increasingly fragmented media world. Consumers have so many entertainment choices right now—there are more than 100 channels in almost every country now plus online, mobile phones and the iPad. But those [who] understand the programming business and who are investing smartly now will be able to help monetize what all these technologies will bring. So I think it’s a good time for the industry.

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TUNING IN TO LATIN AMERICAN TELEVISION BY ANNA CARUGATI

The Power of Choice

Globosat’s Alberto Pecegueiro When Globosat launched in 1991, it changed the television landscape in Brazil with its offering of pay-TV channels. At first, pay TV was a service only the more affluent households could afford, and that was a small percentage of the population. But in recent years, a growing middle class has opened up the payTV market. Globosat’s CEO, Alberto Pecegueiro, explains how.

the same time], the growth of the Brazilian economy has increased the discretionary income at the top of the C-class. So on one hand, people have more money to spend on products like leisure, culture and entertainment. On the other hand, cable and DTH operators are going after that market by offering lower-priced packages. And the combination of these two factors has resulted in the fact that 70 percent of the new subscribers [who] have entered the market in the last 15 months in Brazil come from the lower B-class and the upper C-class segments.

WS: The Brazilian economy has been doing better than many of the economies in the U.S. or Europe. Has that helped Globosat grow its business? PECEGUEIRO: It’s impossible to untangle one thing from the other and the improvement in the pay-TV market is twofold. First, the economic environment has helped cable and satellite operators invest even more in content and services to attract new subscribers than they would have [invested] in a stable economy or in a recession. Just to give you an example, when Sky and DIRECTV merged, almost everyone thought the new entity would constitute a monopoly in the DTH market. After the two most powerful players in pay TV got together, no one in his right mind would have ever predicted that someone else would try to compete with them. And yet, five years later, we find ourselves with four other competitors in the DTH market, all of them heavyweights capable of bringing in investment regardless of the economic environment.The fact that the Brazilian economy is healthy has helped and has motivated the investments [in the] industry. The cable market has also benefitted from the high demand for broadband. So the climate and the atmosphere for the business has never been so favorable. Besides seeing an increase in subscribers, we have also seen a similar increase in advertising sales. We are not the new kids on the block any longer, the Internet is, and it has surpassed cable as the fastest-growing medium, but we’re right behind it.

WS: Which of Globosat’s offerings are the most popular? PECEGUEIRO: First, I would like to point something out.

WS: With the improved economy, are you seeing an increase in subscribers among the growing middle class? PECEGUEIRO: Definitely. There is high pay-TV penetration in the A-class market in Brazil, not so much in the B-class and it used to be very low in the C-class. Two things have converged to increase penetration. First, as we have gained critical mass, the market has created conditions for a product offering at a lower price, and [at 104

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Globosat has to go head-to-head with the largest media companies in the world, like News Corporation, HBO, Time Warner,Viacom, you name it, they are all here. They can benefit from their global scale to amortize the cost of their primary acquisitions.And we have to pay our bills with revenues we earn just from the Brazilian market. In addition, we have to deal with the fact that Portuguese is spoken only in five countries in the world. Even our original productions don’t have much of a market outside of Brazil, so [we] have to make our living within the Brazilian market and we have to face the big gorillas of the global content business. Nevertheless, we’re doing fine. Overall, among the top 20 channels, nine are Globosat channels. If you consider that among the top 20, five are children’s channels, which is a segment [we don’t cater to], and if you take out the kids’ channels, in an average month, of the 15 mostwatched channels, nine are from Globosat and six are international channels. Brazil is the only market in Latin America where this happens. The international channels dominate all other markets from the Río Grande to Tierra del Fuego—even in Mexico, where the broadcast business is big and healthy and solid with Televisa. In May of this year we launched a channel called Viva, which targets women 40-plus, most of them in charge of households and the family.Viva is already one of the top 20 channels in Brazil.We were able to develop and create Viva because, for the first time TV Globo, the broadcast network, accepted the idea of repurposing its library. So for the first time novelas, mini-series, specials and fiction productions that are highly recognized in the Brazilian market have found exposure on a pay-TV channel, and that’s one of the reasons Viva is doing so well.Viva gets 60 percent of its product from TV Globo, 30 percent from other Globosat channels and 20 percent from acquisitions. Of course, we cannot talk about why pay TV is so successful in Brazil without mentioning soccer. Last year, between SporTV and our pay-per-view product, we aired more than 3,000 live events—an average of ten per day.

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Congratulations to Foxtel on 15 years of success ÂŽ

World Wrestling Entertainment is proud to have been with you at the beginning and today. We look forward to many more great years.

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Running theShow By Bill Dunlap

FOX’s Glee.

The great minds that create hit shows are part writers, part managers and part superstars. One could argue, with some expectation of success, that the real stars of the 2010 Primetime Emmy Awards show were Steve Levitan and Matt Weiner. They seemed to get more camera time and praise than any of the on-screen talent, and their shows, Modern Family and Mad Men, respectively, took the top prizes. Weiner’s credits are as executive producer and writer on Mad Men. Levitan has the titles of writer, producer and occasionally director of Modern Family. But both of them answer to the broader title, in the parlance of the day, of showrunner, and they are examples of the way the showrunners of top television series have become some of the most powerful players in the business. That didn’t happen overnight, but their near-star status today is a relatively recent phenomenon. That ultimate arbiter of all things entertainment, Wikipedia, defines “showrunner” as “the person who is responsible for the day-to-day

operation of a television series— although such persons generally are credited as producer or executive producer... The term ‘showrunner’ was created to identify the producer who actually held ultimate management and creative authority for the program.” There have always been successful creative minds in television whose hit shows gave them access, influence and power. Stephen J. Cannell and Norman Lear created, produced, wrote and sometimes directed dozens of drama and comedy series, many of which were critical and financial hits. The likes of Aaron Spelling and Steven Bochco were no slouches either, but nobody refers to any of them as showrunners. Probably the biggest thing that has changed is that today’s show runners have achieved celebrity status. Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad, The Cleveland Show) is everywhere; from emceeing a Comedy Central roast of David Hasselhoff to offering polit-

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ical opinions on Bill Maher’s HBO series Real Time. J. J. Abrams (Alias, Lost, Fringe) gets top billing in NBC promos for his new series Undercovers: “Coming this fall from J. J. Abrams....” Today’s showrunners have been able to achieve that celebrity status not so much because they’re more appealing than the Cannells and Lears, but because there are so many more avenues for them to gain public exposure and because the business of television is so much more closely watched and analyzed than it once was. “It really is a cult of personality,” says Marcy Ross, the executive VP of current programming at FOX Broadcasting. “Everything is show business now.Years ago, you didn’t turn on the television and have back-to-back entertainment-news shows. There weren’t as many articles written about television. It’s not just the actor anymore who is the personality that people are following.”

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Brad Adgate, the senior VP of research at the corporate branding and media strategy house Horizon Media, points out that there are more showrunners these days, and they are operating in an environment where there is more public awareness of their roles. “Even a 20-year-old kid who watches Family Guy has heard of Seth MacFarlane,” Adgate says. “I couldn’t have told you 15 or 20 years ago who these people were. But they have reached a celebrity, and in some cases, iconic, status.” A similar observation comes from another close follower of the business, Professor Robert Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “Today a guy like Matt Weiner, or David Kelley [Ally McBeal, The Practice, Boston Legal and Picket Fences] or Joss Whedon [Buffy the Vampire Slayer] is like Cannell and Bochco,” Thompson says. “They used to be called hyphenates [creator-executive

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Happy hour: Matt Weiner serves as showrunner on the hit series he created for AMC, Mad Men. The Lionsgate production, now in season four, is a three-time winner of the Emmy Award for best drama.

producer or writer-producer], now they’re showrunners. During the reigns of Cannell and Spelling the Internet wasn’t active. Now you have guys like Whedon, who goes directly to his fan base on his blog.” Thompson looks to the 1980s and early ’90s—when the cable universe and first-run broadcast syndication spawned shows like E! News,

Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition—as the beginning of a new focus on the entertainment business. “There were venues to interview these people,” he says. “In the old days people didn’t think of television as being an artistic creation. Television started getting a lot better too. Hill Street Blues revolutionized the quality of TV.

“Sitting there and coming up with interesting dialogue and interesting stories that people haven’t seen done a million times on TV—that is really where I earn my bacon, as the saying goes.” —Marc Cherry, Creator, Desperate Housewives

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“I told the production designers and everyone at every point…that all the ashtrays always had to be full. Because that’s what I remember, ashes everywhere.” —Matt

Programming got more ambitious. Now, when you get into the real cult stuff, the Abramses and Whedons, their auteur status is very much like what you see in film directors.” THE WRITE STUFF

Jeff Melvoin, who with John Wells (Southland, E.R., The West Wing) runs the Writers Guild of America’s Showrunner Training Program, has written for and run shows since the mid-1980s (Remington Steele, Northern Exposure, Army Wives) and traces the concept of the showrunner to the days of MTM Enterprises in the 1970s (Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show and, later, Hill Street Blues).

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Weiner, Creator, Mad Men

“Suddenly there were distinctive voices being heard,” Melvoin says, and the multiple, continuing plot lines of shows like Hill Street Blues required tight plot and writing control, provided, in that case, by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll. “The credit used to be writerproducer. Nobody talked about a showrunner. What helped establish it in the public mind was a terrific article in The New York Times about John Wells when he was running E.R. It was a big story about the showrunner. John didn’t create the show but certainly its success rode on his shoulders. That article helped establish in the public perception that there is this phenomenon known as a showrunner.”

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“Ultimately, the secret of the show is we don’t try to make other people laugh, we’re trying to make ourselves laugh. The show is designed to amuse the people who work on the show.” —Matt

Groening, Creator, The Simpsons

A STAR IS BORN

The article, by Andy Meisler, ran February 26, 1995. “At any one moment, Mr. Wells is supervising the content and execution of at least four one-hour episodes in various stages of development— from script to filming to editing to post-production…. In the term of the trade, Mr. Wells is E.R.’s showrunner. “For the last 10 years at least, the person with that unofficial title has been the true auteur of series television. Day to day, a showrunner makes all-important decisions about the

series’ scripts, tone, attitude, look and direction. He or she oversees casting, production design and budget. This person chooses directors and guest stars, defends the show against meddling by the network or production company and, when necessary, changes its course… “Perhaps most surprising, showrunners almost always emerge from the ranks of writers—traditionally Hollywood’s most underempowered profession. Nevertheless, the showrunner’s sovereignty is ac knowledged by nearly everyone in television.”

How successful are the hot showrunners in getting new shows on the air this season? Following is an excerpt from Adgate’s 2010–2011 Upfront Book, prepared for the upfront ad-buying season this year: “There are some famous people working behind the camera on first-year shows. For example, Chuck Lorre, the executive producer of Two and Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, the two highest-rated comedies on network TV in 2009–10, will introduce a third comedy to CBS, Mike

& Molly. The 2009–10 season marked the first time in 20 years that David E. Kelley was not involved in a program on network television. Kelley returns in 2010–11 with Harry’s Law, a midseason show on NBC. Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer of ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and its spinoff Private Practice, will have a third medical drama on ABC, Off the Map, which is slated for mid-season. J. J. Abrams…will be the executive producer of Undercovers on NBC. NBC also picked up The Chase from Jerry Bruckheimer.

“[At HBO] they don’t spend a lot of time trying to take what you are creating and turn it into something else that looks like something that has been successful before. They want to broaden the scope of what television can be.” —Alan

Ball, Creator, Six Feet Under, True Blood

Ratings saver: Grey’s Anatomy was Shonda Rhimes’s first breakout hit for ABC, subsequently spinning off another hit drama for the network, Private Practice. Rhimes is now executive producing Off the Map, a mid-season replacement. 108

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more independent production companies. Now, the majority of scripted prime-time television is funded by the major studios. Spelling and Cannell ran their own companies. They not only wrote, created and produced all the stuff they did, they also owned it.” THE CHOSEN ONES

But top executives today and then have the same attributes—the ability to be great storytellers and, at the same time, to manage organizations. “Talent is talent,” Jossen says. Talent and a successful track record provide top showrunners with more opportunities at ABC and somewhat greater ability to gain more creative freedom and to get more money to do their shows the way they think they should be done, according to Jossen.

“Drama is conflict and the oldest conflict is life and death, which you get all the time in police and law shows.” —Dick

In the spotlight: The married writing-and-production team Robert and Michelle King created The Good Wife, which received critical acclaim as well as top ratings in its first season on CBS.

Bruckheimer will also produce ABC’s new legal drama The Whole Truth…. Dick Wolf will return with a new Law & Order on NBC, this one originating from Los Angeles. Shawn Ryan, the creator of The Shield will be behind Ride-

Along, a cop drama scheduled for mid-season on FOX.” The clout of these and other showrunners goes beyond getting new shows on the air. Based on their track records, they often have the leverage to get what they want

“I think about the show and the current episode, and the next episode and the one after that. I only think about our sister shows when they’ve beaten us to a good story. Day to day, honestly, I don’t think about the franchise.” —Carol Mendelsohn, Executive Producer & Showrunner, CSI

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from the studios and networks. But that’s nothing new for successful producers and they don’t have carte blanche. They seem to wield such power that few studio or network-development executives are comfortable talking about them, individually or collectively, on the record. Barry Jossen, the executive VP of studio creative and production at the ABC Entertainment Group, says there are similarities and differences between the old-line producers and today’s showrunners. “The industry has evolved in a number of ways,” he explains. “When we’re talking about the era of Cannell and Spelling, there were

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Wolf, Creator, Law & Order

“The people who are most successful certainly get more opportunities, but those opportunities are earned through achievement,” he says. “There is greater comfort and confidence in them and the work they do. We’ve been working with Shonda Rhimes for eight years or so, so there’s a kind of shorthand to the whole thing. We know when to push her and she knows when to push us. We have a good, healthy dialogue with each other about what’s important and what we feel passionately about, and through that we reach consensus. Sometimes things go our way, sometimes things go her way. But always out of a good healthy dis-

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“We find ourselves tearing our hair out at the beginning of every season just trying to have the right foundation and the right elements to keep it working for an entire 24-episode season.” —Joel

Surnow,

Co-Creator, 24

Getting dirty: Modern Family was a big winner at the Emmys this year, scoring the award for best comedy, among several others.

“We work very hard to put it together, but we try not to let you see that it is put together.” —Shawn

Ryan, Creator, The Shield, Ride-Along

course, not ‘Let me throw my weight around.’” Jossen says the best relationships between ABC and its showrunners are the ones that are most collaborative. “There are so many choices, but you want to work with the people you know and like, and know you can rely on,” he says. “Part of collaboration is letting people do their roles and do what they do best within their roles. Programmers at the networks should be trusted and relied on to do their part, because they’re the best at it, the same ways the writers are best at

writing and the directors are best at directing.” FOX’s Ross also says most disagreements with showrunners are settled amicably, but there have been a couple of showrunners, whom she declines to name, who have held a long grudge against the network. “It wasn’t against me personally,” she says. “It made me laugh, even when they achieved so much success they still felt betrayed by us. It jarred me. That doesn’t happen very often. For the most part there is a lot of respect and really healthy disagreement. You might 112

have a disagreement and a show might be canceled, and you find that six months later the showrunner is back pitching us another show because they know that was then, this is now. It’s such an intimate business, where everyone knows each other. Nobody wants to burn bridges; no one wants to make it personal. Everybody knows that if you’ve done it well and communicated well, it’s about the work. It’s not personal.”

Ross throws out the example of MacFarlane’s first show on FOX, Family Guy, which didn’t just push the envelope, it often steamed the envelope wide open. One episode last year, “Partial Terms of Endearment,” dealt with abortion and was held off the air (but not off Fox home video). “Family Guy has had its share of standards and practices woes,” Ross says. “But Seth gets it. He understands advertising. He understands the rules of the networks. He’s a really savvy businessman. It’s not his ego. If there’s a problem, he’ll call me. With the head of standards and practices, we’ll do a conference call. We get on the phone together and work it out.” The vertical integration of the television business today also plays a role in the relationship between showrunners and the networks. “In several cases in our industry, the studios and networks are sister companies and part of a larger organization,” Jossen says. “ABC Studios and ABC Entertainment are all part

“You’re making decisions on the fly and in hallways and on the stairwell on the way to a meeting. You cross paths every once in a while and bark out orders to each other and then go in different directions. It’s a real three-ring circus!”

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of The Walt Disney Company. So we have a lot of collaboration and a special relationship that promotes more collaboration. We work more closely together and things like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had a Grey’s Anatomy spin-off’ occur.” Jossen says the close relationship between the showrunner Rhimes, ABC Studios and the network has played a key part in the development

everybody thinking that we should be thinking about a spin-off from Grey’s,” he says. “Shonda came back with an idea.” Jossen isn’t concerned about Rhimes spreading herself too thin across three concurrent series. “She’s a really good manager and she’s got a really good team around her. She staffs her shows and manages them and she directs the work. She has

“[In the U.K.] We have much more flexible formats. We don’t have writers’ rooms, we have one writer writing the whole thing.” —Russell

on the air. They nurtured this writer, Jenna Bans, who’s been with them on Grey’s Anatomy for

Action packed: Jerry Bruckheimer’s newest procedural is Chase, about a U.S. Marshals fugitive-apprehension team, which airs on NBC.

of her Grey’s Anatomy spinoff, Private Practice, and this season’s Off the Map. “The spin-off arose just from regular daily interaction and

a great producing partner in Betsy Beers. Off the Map arose out of their interest in growing their company and having more shows

“Nobody is actually looking at a show and saying, ‘This was a really beautiful, artistic piece of work.’ What they are saying is, ‘Whoops, it got a million viewers, we’re down 2 percent in our viewing figures.’” —Lynda

La Plante, Creator, Prime Suspect

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years. Together they developed the idea.” LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS

Ross expresses concern about showrunners adding new shows only if they take them to other networks. “If there is a writer who has a hit show with us, and then they sell another show because they have a development deal somewhere else, that’s worrisome,” she says. “You try to imagine how they’re going to navigate a show on another network and a World Screen

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Davies, Creator, Torchwood show with us. When it’s more contained on our network, then we feel we can help them balance their workload.” Consequently, the networks and their sister studios try to lock in top talent with long-term commitments, something that seems natural to Ross. “I would assume that Ryan Murphy, who would say he had a wonderful experience with us on Glee, would want his next piece of development to be with us.There’s a great working relationship there. And really, you want to work with the people you have shorthand with. Once you do a successful show with somebody, you sort of have your team and you trust them.” Jossen looks back to the 2004–05 season, when ABC launched Grey’s Anatomy, Lost and Desperate Housewives. “You have Shonda, Damon Lindelof from Lost and Marc Cherry from Desperate Housewives. We have a roster populated with a lot of very successful producers. It also includes Greg Berlanti, who’s producing Brothers & Sisters and No Ordinary Family for us, and Bill Lawrence, who did Scrubs for nine years and now has Cougar Town. They are all under some form of long-term contract with us. We want to encourage them to be prolific and make good shows.”

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S E R U T C I P D L R O W N A C AMERI 11.05) MIPCOM 2010

(STAND

s.com worldpicture n a c ri e m .a w tles at ww ution See all our ti dwide Distrib om rl o W f o t n e resid res.c y Goldman, P ffrey@americanworldpictu re ff e J t c ta n o je C

91436, USA 0, Encino, CA 32 te ui S , d. 8-380-0050 a Blv 16027 Ventur 0-9100 Fax: 81 Phone: 818-38

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Simon Cowell There are TV hits and then there are shows that are such sensations they captivate an entire nation and revive a network whose ratings were in a slump. The shows Simon Cowell has either created or participated in as a judge have done just that and more—they influenced pop culture and became money-making machines.

WS: When you look for that very elusive

star quality, what elements do you look for? And is skill the most important factor, or does a person also have to have a style that is relevant to the times? COWELL: You make a very good point with that latter [question]. I think you have to look at it on an annual basis, because as you said, tastes change. If you look at the pop music world today, it’s completely

influenced by Lady Gaga, Glee, Katy Perry. Two years ago it was a very different landscape. So you have to take those factors into account when you are casting for a new show. And the reason we call the show The X Factor is it’s [about] more than just a singing voice, because if it were only [about] a singing voice, we could just as easily make a show where contestants send in tapes and we listen to the voices. It’s charisma, personality, being unique, entertaining, all those things rolled into one. WS: If we look at American Idol, Got Talent and The X Factor, what can you say about their ability to reinvigorate a broadcast network? What has American Idol done for FOX; what has The X Factor done for ITV?

STROKE OF GENIUS: Cowell is behind the megahit formats Got Talent and The X Factor, helping to turn amateurs into multimillion-dollar-earning artists. COWELL: I think the honest answer is what

you do for each other because when you first walk in the door, you need the broadcasters a lot more than they need you. Then you reach a point where the relationship becomes a lot more balanced. My attitude has been, with any broadcaster you work with, it has to work as a partnership and if it’s not a partnership, it won’t work. And you’ve got to stay loyal to that partner, and as we’ve shown over the years, we’ve pretty much stayed with the same network, unless they didn’t want one of our shows and we’ve gone elsewhere. It’s a people business and I like the people at ITV and FOX. I’m genuinely happy with what they have given me and I’m incredibly grateful, daily, I’m grateful! WS: On the other hand, what does the popularity of these shows say about people’s desire or need to have their 15 minutes of fame? When you and I grew up there was no Internet or Twitter or Facebook. Has the need to be known grown because the media landscape offers more outlets, or have your shows tapped into something that has been there all along? 118

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COWELL: I feel one feeds the other. When

we recognized that these shows were popular, more and more people wanted to be famous, so it was the right time to make these shows. So I think one feeds the other. The other point is that most celebrities you see on TV are boring, whereas reality-show contestants are interesting. WS: In talent competition shows, at times the interaction between judges overshadows the performances of the contestants. What do you feel is the proper role for a judge? COWELL: You make a very good point there. We have gotten into the habit, and obviously I’m partly responsible for this, of the judges’ personalities being talked about more than the contestants, and therefore the new judges are going into these roles as kind of bad actors rather than what we should be doing for a living. For me the most important criteria for sitting on a judging panel is, do you actually know what you are talking about? That should be the most important thing and that goes back to my point earlier on celebrities versus normal people, which is I’m finding more and more now that a lot of celebrities, because they are too nervous to be outspoken, are actually quite boring compared to people who don’t care. In other words I don’t want to be lectured by people, I’m actually curious as to what real people have got to say and I’m finding that more and more and more now. WS: In an interview you gave after the elections in the U.K., you said you might like to do a show that would bring to light some of the issues that are most important to Britons. Is that something that you would really like to do? COWELL: I thought about it. I’m probably feeling more now, having experienced it a tiny bit myself, that I’m not sure that I should be anywhere near politics. I think I’m great at making entertainment shows—it’s a lot more fun. Even though I sometimes fantasize about making something more serious, I think at the end of the day I’m always going to stick to entertainment.

For more from Simon Cowell, see page 373.

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Haim Saban Power Rangers was one of the first global TV brands, a hugely successful children’s show in multiple territories that spun off a vast array of consumer products. Haim Saban, the chairman and CEO of Saban Capital Group, first spotted the property’s potential and is now about to relaunch it for today’s kids.

she saw was a show that was a) a lot of fun, b) campy and c) [had] elements that kids [could] relate to right away, which are teamwork, good always overcomes evil and an ethnically diverse cast. I think there is something in the show that both boys and girls find very attractive. I saw that, and much to my luck, Margaret Loesch saw that, too, in 1993.

WS: Thinking back to 1993 when you

first launched Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, what elements and media did you need to launch the brand and what made it so successful? SABAN: Power Rangers is a very unique property that I found in Japan back in 1984. I tried to sell it for many, many years unsuccessfully until Margaret Loesch, who used to run the Fox Kids network, saw what I saw. And what

WS: If we fast-forward to today, the media

landscape is much different than it was in 1993. It’s multiplatform, multi-device; children have a million other things competing for their attention. What are your plans for re-launching the brand? SABAN: Content is always king and we are going to adapt the Power Rangers, in terms of distribution, to today’s world. So you will

STROKE OF GENIUS: After discovering Power Rangers in Japan in the 1980s, Haim Saban turned the show into a global TV and merchandising phenomenon. find Power Rangers on all of these platforms, from television to the iPod touch, the iPhone, the iPad, and obviously the Internet, as well as gaming, simple gaming you can play on your portable device, more complicated gaming for the major consoles—Xbox and the like. So when you have content that kids can identify with so easily, frankly, the platforms will find you or you will find them. It’s a non-issue. Let’s not forget that the show has survived the test of time and has been airing in Japan for the last 40 years. WS: The vast majority of revenues that are

generated from a successful brand nowadays come from merchandising. Considering how many more platforms children have available, do you believe that television is still the most important media to get the exposure that you need for launching merchandising? Is it still essential? SABAN: Yes, it’s crucial.You have phenomena that start on the Internet, but they really explode when someone identifies a phenomenon and brings it to television. They are completely different areas. Take, for example, Justin Bieber. He exploded on the Internet 120

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and people noticed. People who organize tours, people who distribute records, people who make movies, et cetera, noticed his success and brought it to traditional media. But these are more the exceptions than the rules. If you look at the more successful brands today, both rejuvenated ones and new ones, the bottom line is that they are either the result of a major feature film, be it Toy Story, Transformers, G.I. Joe, or the result of a very successful TV series, like Dora the Explorer. So in my view, television is still the vehicle to promote and build a brand. WS: There are some distributors out there who will give their TV product away for free in order to guarantee exposure. Is that a route you would take or do you like the license fees that you can collect? SABAN: Well, [Laughs] the reality is that there has been significant consolidation among children’s channels.There are basically four players, Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and PBS, whereas before, all the broadcasters out there were in the kids’ business. That is element number one. Element number two is that we need to be aware that the advertising pie in the U.S. has been under a lot of pressure. It has been essentially flat for the last ten years, and during years when the economy was not doing that well it was even less than flat compared to what it was ten years ago. In Europe, there have been multiple limitations put on advertising for kids, such as the ones on fast food [the ban in the U.K. on advertising of HFSS foods—high in fat, salt and sugar content]. Cable, on the one hand, has control of the pipes to the home. [And cable provides most of the outlets for children’s programming nowadays] because broadcasters are no longer in the kids’ business in any significant way. But cable channels are under pressure and they have the advantage of having all the leverage. So if you are under pressure and you have leverage it’s inevitable that the pendulum will swing in favor of the cable channels and not in favor of the content providers.

For more from Haim Saban, see page 325.

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One hour drama series & telemovie

Nina... Doctor, Dreamer, Daughter. Will she ever find love?

The #1 rated show in its timeslot for key advertiser demographics of Ages 16-39, 18-49 & 25-54

A Southern Star John Edwards production for Network Ten Australia in association with Film Victoria

Come and visit Endemol at our new stand â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Lerins Hall LR5.15

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Jerry Bruckheimer Film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer has likened his craft to the transportation business—he believes in transporting the audience from one place to another and has done so with blockbuster movies like Armageddon and Pirates of the Caribbean. In television, he has elevated the procedural drama to a new level, infusing the storytelling with oftentimes eye-popping special effects.

WS: In your TV division, what has led to a preference for procedurals? Did that happen by chance or was that by design? BRUCKHEIMER: I think it was more by chance, to be honest with you, although I gravitate toward that stuff anyway.This project [CSI ] came in from Anthony Zuiker, we

loved it and we pitched it to the networks, and fortunately for us, CBS bought it. WS: And it’s been very successful, hasn’t it? BRUCKHEIMER: It certainly has! WS: Since the L.A. screenings, I’ve spoken

to several buyers from major broadcasters around the world about the pilots they saw of new fall shows, and repeatedly they would refer to your new shows Chase or The Whole Truth, not by their titles, but as “Jerry Bruckheimer shows.” Why is that kind of brand identification important? BRUCKHEIMER: We’ve had our success with both features and television and I think we give a certain brand to a certain type of entertainment that is known for quality. And

STROKE OF GENIUS: Bruckheimer threw his support behind a forensics procedural from an unknown writer—CSI is today TV’s most successful franchise. that quality consists of good stories that are well told and well produced. I hope that is what [our shows portray]; that is what we try to do. WS: There has been talk for the last few

years about the expense of producing pilots. Some network executives have talked about not doing pilots anymore, instead going straight into production on six or even 13 episodes of a series. What is your view of pilots—are they the best way to develop and present a series? BRUCKHEIMER: I haven’t seen a better way yet. They’ve done shorter versions of pilots. They’ve done presentations. But I think it depends on the talent. If you have a concept that you really love and a script that you love and a team—producer, showrunner, director—that you have real faith in, sometimes the network will take a leap. But it’s hard because there are a lot of variables that come into making a successful show and you never know. We’ve made pilots that fortunately for us have done quite well. But in the past, I’m sure the networks were disappointed with things so it’s silly for them to 122

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make a huge commitment of six or 13 shows, which is a lot of money, based on just being convinced that they have a good script and a good team. WS: On average, your series cost less per episode than several other series. How do you manage to get that cinematic look on the small screen while containing costs? BRUCKHEIMER: It’s all about planning and working with your showrunners. Our production people talk regularly.They will read a script and say, for example, Look, if you find this and that we wouldn’t have to move locations. We figure out ways to cut corners without cutting things on the screen. If you put a good team together—our people in the office and our executive producers who actually have to deal with production work with Warner Bros.— they can figure out ways to cut corners. WS: At what point do you get involved in

the development and production of a series, and what is your level of involvement? BRUCKHEIMER: I’ll be pitched the concepts of the shows and if there is anything written I’ll comment on that and then Jonathan Littman [the president of Jerry Bruckheimer Television] goes out and pitches to the various networks. I’ll get involved in the actual pilot script when it comes in. I’ll give them notes on that. I’ll get involved in picking the director and the actors and cast. I’ll get involved in the editing of the pilot. I’ll read every single script as it comes in and watch every episode and make comments. Am I on the set? No. Do I do the episodic casting? No, but if a new cast member comes in who is a regular I’ll certainly be involved in the decision of that and most major decisions as far as putting together the crew. We have such a bank of wonderful designers and cinematographers that have worked with us in the past, we try to draw on them to put together a show. I’ll be involved in picking the showrunner along with the network. I get involved in the marketing and the advertising of our shows. WS: Is there a lot of crossover of talent— actors, set designers, special effects—from the film division to the TV division?

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Half hour sitcom

“Pitch perfect performances... pitch perfect writing.” THE INDEPENDENT WRITTEN AND CREATED BY

Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer

Tiger Aspect Production for BBC2 UK Come and visit Endemol at our new stand – Lerins Hall LR5.15

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because people are watching movies on small screens. How do you feel about people watching movies on small screens? BRUCKHEIMER: It has to be tailored for whatever the primary use is, so if the primary use is television, you have to tailor it to what television can handle. And if people watch on a small screen they are going to miss some of the sexiness of the filming. But if it’s made specifically for a phone, then that’s a different issue. WS: Are you somewhat screen agnostic? Do you like to produce for as many screens as possible? BRUCKHEIMER: I think we all do. We want to reach as large an audience as possible in any way they enjoy watching. We much prefer for them to view it in the format it was designed for, but in other formats, if they fall in love with what we do, it’s exciting to us. WS: How do you feel about 3D? Will you

be producing more? BRUCKHEIMER: We made one picture in

3D, G-Force, and we are making the fourth Pirates movie in 3D. I believe in it. It gives the audience an added boost because it puts you inside the movie and gives the movie an enormous amount of depth. It’s not made for every film, but for certain films it will certainly add a lot of entertainment. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

BRUCKHEIMER: There is some. We cer-

tainly have a lot of people we like in television that eventually we hope will work with us in film. But they get involved in a television series and it’s hard for them to get free. But there definitely is crossover. We used an actor in CSI: Miami and I put him in Sorcerer’s Apprentice. WS: How are the economics of movie-

making changing, and what adjustments have you had to make on the movies you are producing now? BRUCKHEIMER: Movies always cost too much and you’re always trying to fight what a studio wants to spend on a film and what the script tells you it’s going to cost. So it’s a constant battle. Ever since I got in the business there has been a battle between the creative and the financial and you have to live within certain parameters. The studio will give you

what they feel their appetite for a film is and then you try to work within that appetite. WS: Why have franchise movies become so important for the studios? BRUCKHEIMER: Nothing is guaranteed, but a franchise movie guarantees a certain amount of revenues as long as your budget is within the parameters of what the studio feels a picture can earn even if it’s a failure. So franchises are very important.They drive everything. When you have a Pirates franchise or an Iron Man franchise or a SpiderMan franchise, they are very important to the health of the studio.They bring in enormous revenues if they are done right. WS: Some filmmakers are concerned that

as people increasingly watch feature films on portable devices, some directors will shoot fewer long shots and panoramic shots 124

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WS: And how do you see it for television? BRUCKHEIMER: I think the technology

has to get there. Right now it’s not very cost-effective for consumers. Hopefully it will eventually get there. It’s great for sports and big spectacle shows. WS: Are there films you still have not done that you would like to do? BRUCKHEIMER: We have 40 projects in development and all those films we’d like to get made. We make one to three films a year, so it’s going to take time. WS: Who in your career, what directors or

writers, influenced you? BRUCKHEIMER: I think everybody that I’ve

worked with has influenced me in one way or another.There is no single individual. Anytime I work with somebody I try to learn. If I don’t get up in the morning and learn something new every day, it’s not a good day.

WSN_1010_ENDEMOL HAUNTING_Layout 1 9/17/10 11:50 AM Page 1

Half hour series

From the multi-award winning producers who brought you “Goosebumps” and the New York Times best selling author

R.L. Stine (Goosebumps) Comes a new children’s television series Launching Halloween on The Hub

The Hatchery LLC

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Ridley Scott If it’s true that a picture paints a thousand words, then a beautifully crafted series or miniseries creates a world viewers want to inhabit. Oscar-winning director and producer Ridley Scott has brought cinematic sensibilities to the small screen and set new standards for quality television with historical mini-series as well as timely procedural dramas.

WS: What appeals to you about working in

television; what creative freedoms does it allow you to explore? SCOTT: When you are working in television, whether you are working on series or mini-series, which can be four hours or eight hours, you can expand on the characters and the story in a way that can’t be done in a feature film. Feature film will

always be a slimmed-down edition, especially if it’s an epic, which is quite difficult because you are trying to pin a feature film within the confines of two and a half hours. It starts to get very challenging if a film goes beyond two and a half or three hours, right? Whereas in TV, a mini-series of eight hours, or better still a series which goes on five or six years, is great because you get a real evolution of the characters and of the story as it’s happening and you create a universe in a way that you can’t really do in film. WS: What challenges did The Pillars of the Earth present? It was based on a long novel, with intertwining story lines.What appealed to you about the project?

STROKE OF GENIUS: Big-screen sensibilities are the hallmark of Scott’s television work, which includes epic productions such as The Pillars of the Earth. SCOTT: I guess I like challenges. If you are

in the film industry you’ve got to enjoy the stress that these challenges present you with. If you don’t, then don’t do the job! The first questions that arise are: how do you narrow this down, how do you break the episodes up, how do you break the stories up, can we actually accomplish this within the budget we have, which was tight especially when you spread it over eight hours and particularly with the number of important characters that run through the story. The first thing you want to do is get that on paper; if you can pin that down, the rest starts to fall into place. WS: You have been credited with being one

of the greatest visual stylists in film and you pay incredible attention to detail.Where did that come from? SCOTT: I think it came from a natural source, which is my love of painting. I guess I was fairly advanced: I was painting from the age of five or six. While some kids were scribbling, I was doing full canvases by the time I was eight. I spent seven years in art school and then attended the Royal College 126

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of Art. I got my degree and followed a route in design, which would take me to the BBC and, eventually, I found myself directing. The detail comes from my inherent love of looking at paintings and actually also photographs. I got into quite a high level of photography at the Royal College.The fashion industry really attracted me and I thought being a photographer might be a fun and good profession. I was looking in those days at people like Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. I wouldn’t have liked to do it if I had been anything less than that. All my work was so compacted, everything was always very detailed, that’s the way I saw everything. That’s been carried through to other areas of my work. My success in advertising was because I brought what I thought were film sensibilities to television commercials. All my commercials honestly look like feature films. I think I’ve got what they call an eye, and with an eye you don’t need a set, you just need a camera, because your set, frankly, is when you step out the door. Whether you walk onto a set that is being constructed, or you walk into a room or you walk through a park, it’s all got to do with your eye—give me a shot. I’ve always been able to do that and, in fact, I’ve been criticized for that. But as Hitchcock said, at the end of the day this is not a radio play, dude, we’re talking about pictures here! Eventually I realized fairly quickly it was an advantage. WS: Does television allow you to play that

out even on the small screen? SCOTT: Oh, terribly. I’m not standing there

calling action, I’m not directing the TV series we do, but if I were, I would definitely try to wedge in the detail. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s the way I see things. I try to talk to our TV directors as a producer, saying, God is in the details. WS: When watching The Good Wife, besides the stories and the acting, there is something about the visuals that pulls you right in. SCOTT: The trick is to create a universe that the audience wants to occupy for that space and time.

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The Pillars of the Earth

WS: Tell us about your passion for commercials, because your company RSA still produces them. SCOTT: Oh, yes, the commercials never went away. I felt they might go away once I started film. I never did a film till I was 39 and by then my company in London, honestly, was the top company for commercials, really. We had already expanded into New York, so [the business] was not going away and [the credit goes to] my younger brother, Tony. Whenever I disappeared to make a film he was always there to defend the fort and keep the company going. I think we were one of the first to actually evolve into having a group of directors and run the company like a creative house. WS: There is a very valid discipline in working in very short form, with only a minute or 30 seconds to tell a story, right? SCOTT: And only a day to shoot it! You’re lucky if you have a 60-second commercial and you’ve maybe got two days to shoot it and you’ve got to really nail it in that time, so you are constantly working against the clock. It’s definitely art versus commerce. I think almost every top-of-the-line commercial director who is serious today thinks of what they do in terms of art. Of course, they are also quite into the fact that it’s got to function as a piece of advertising.

WS: The commercials I see airing in Europe seem like small films. SCOTT: A lot of young filmmakers are coming out of commercials now, but directing commercials used to be a stigma. In my days it was me and Alan Parker and maybe Adrian Lyne out of the U.K. and there was almost a stigma if you came from advertising because the feature film people would say, “Yeah, but have you ever talked to an actor before?” I heard that all the time, you know? WS: Are historical themes of particular

interest to you when you tackle mini-series? SCOTT: When you look at my body of

work in film, I started off with The Duelists. In 1991, with Gérard Depardieu, I did 1492, which is 15th century. And then I did Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, so I am obviously a history buff. Maybe because looking back on those worlds the attraction is that they are more exotic than where we are today. WS: You have a great fascination and admi-

ration for Winston Churchill, don’t you? SCOTT: Yes, we’ve done two mini-series

about Churchill: The Gathering Storm with Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave, and Into the Storm with Brendan Gleeson. We are thinking about doing a third because 128

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Brendon took us through the war years right through to Churchill’s resignation. Actually, the English public voted him out to bring in the Labour Party with Clement Attlee in 1945. But remarkably Churchill retired to lick his wounds and while he was in retirement wrote the four-volume History of the English-Speaking People! And five years later was called to be prime minister again. Pretty remarkable man! WS: Do you still find time to paint? SCOTT: I do quite large canvases. I started

painting again quite seriously about two years ago. And right now, frankly, I’m trying to find out who I am on canvas. I started pretty straightforward figurative painting because I can do pretty well and because honestly, three of my favorite painters today might be Peter Doig, David Hockney and Lucian Freud. Freud is a big influence on me. [My desire to paint] reawoke when I was looking at a large painting by Freud of a child lying asleep on a carpet next to a rubber plant by the window, and the rubber plant was kind of ratty and dying. But the painting was fantastic and I thought, Oh, my God, because it was real. [So I thought] I’ll begin by being real [with figurative painting and] I may stay real.

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Ricky Gervais With his comedy of embarrassment, exposing everyday faux pas, gaffes and prejudices, Ricky Gervais has raised the bar of comedy to a new level of sophistication with shows like The Office and Extras. Never reluctant to hone in on unmentionable truths, Gervais is one of the great comedic geniuses of our time.

WS: You will be appearing in Curb Your

Enthusiasm; how did that come about? GERVAIS: I’m appearing as myself in an

episode and I’m very excited. Larry David and I had been in contact, e-mailing each other over various things. When I did The Marriage Ref, I had lunch with him. I had met him before. I actually interviewed him for a thing I did for Channel 4 in England, meeting my comedy heroes. I did my three

biggest influences who are alive, which are Christopher Guest, Larry David and Garry Shandling. I really hit it off with Larry. I feel that we’re similar in a lot of our sensibilities with comedy. I can see the same influences in his work as mine [from] Laurel and Hardy and Woody Allen. We’ve been credited for this comedy of embarrassment and he’s such a funny, funny guy. It’s real modern observational comedy that he did with Seinfeld. I was a huge fan of Seinfeld, as was everyone, but I liked that it was the first time standup observations were rendered well in a narrative piece. Usually, you saw stand-up comedians get their own TV show and they’d go into a room and do some shtick, whereas on Seinfeld, they got the shtick done in the first few seconds showing that it was

STROKE OF GENIUS: One of the most acclaimed British comedies in recent times, The Office has also become one of the U.K.’s most successful exports. a stand-up, and then they acted out the observations and took it to its logical conclusion. It was real comedy for comedians as well as being very broad and mainstream, which I’m not so good at. I can’t get my head around to doing a live studio audience and all that. If you’re going to do a broad mainstream studio audience show, Seinfeld’s the one. They set the bar—it’s never been improved upon. So it’s an honor to work with Larry. WS: What sort of comedy do you prefer doing? GERVAIS: I’m obsessed with realism because I think it resonates more. I also like nonverbal stuff, body language, and that has to be very intimate, so I like the camera getting in there. In TV, you don’t need to sit back and play for the gallery.You don’t need to shout lines. You don’t need exposition. The camera gets right in there, closer than real life can, and you can be really subtle. People feel body language, they don’t need things spelled out for them. We came to The Office with a much bigger list of don’ts than dos. We hated expo130

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sition, those people who come into a room and say, “Sarah, you know your brother, the doctor,” “Yea, of course I do.” That’s just lazy script writing. Likewise, you don’t need to be very big. Comedy has gone through this phase of people acting in a funny way. If they’re in a sitcom, they have to act funny and I’m thinking, why are they acting like that? You laugh at people who are normal everyday or so-called normal people. So The Office was about a lot of nonverbal communication. WS: And it wasn’t only about the joke, it was also the setting? GERVAIS: The Office was probably the first out-and-out comedy about comedy. There was so much about comedy: David Brent thought he was a comedian. It was about people being less funny than they wanted. We weren’t laughing at funny jokes, we were laughing at bad jokes and we were laughing at the aftermath of a bad joke. Not everyone is the wittiest person in the world in an office. A lot of people make a joke, and a bad joke is the most embarrassing thing in the world, so we studied the aftermath.We studied this guy who thought he was a comedian, but clearly wasn’t. We had a go at broad comedy, just catchphrases, people shouting catchphrases. We had a go at people doing impressions of comedians, which I’ve never understood. The impressionist comes out and does an impression of a comedy character and I think, that doesn’t count, what are you doing with that? The reason The Office worked was because of the realism. If you take away the fact that it’s a fake documentary, it’s just a slow sitcom without many jokes in it. As soon as you explain to people this is a fake documentary, they say, “Ah, I realize why he’s acting like that. He wants to be famous. He wants to be loved. He wants to gain respect through popularity as opposed to doing all of these honorable things. I know what sort of man he is. He is a man of our generation, who wants to be part of this new class called celebrity, which is all-forgiving and accepting.”

For more from Ricky Gervais, see page 196.

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137 x 1 hours

a fun fresh family comedy...

An Endemol Argentina and Kaberplay Production Come and visit Endemol at our new stand â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Lerins Hall LR5.15

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John de Mol Big Brother, and other shows created by John de Mol, helped create a new genre—reality TV—and fundamentally shifted the economics of prime-time television. A hit show didn’t need to be scripted, didn’t require professional actors, could be produced for much less than dramas or comedies and its format could be replicated in numerous territories. Today, de Mol is creating new formats at Talpa Media.

WS: When you first came up with the idea for Big Brother and your other big formats, what challenges did you face in trying to convince broadcasters to try a new programming concept? DE MOL: There were so many challenges and there was so much resistance that I find it very difficult to give you a short answer. From the

moment we had the basic idea of Big Brother, to the moment we finished the format, it took us one and a half years. In the meantime we had been talking to numerous broadcasters, first of course in Holland, but nobody even wanted to discuss it.They said,This is impossible, you cannot do this, nobody wants to see it, we will have bad press, blah, blah, blah. The resistance was huge and at the end of the day—but this is a pretty well known story—we sold Big Brother in Holland to the network Veronica, where we had to take full risk for the whole show for them. Actually, over the last ten years, nothing has changed because every time you offer a format that is different from everything before it, you encounter resistance, because most broadcasters [would] still rather have a safe choice, as far

STROKE OF GENIUS: With Big Brother, John de Mol forever changed the face of television, ushering in a wave of reality TV shows. as a TV show can be safe, with something they know, than go for the unknown. My vision of this business is that the next really big thing will not come from a genre that we already know, it will be something that will find a lot of resistance, but in the end will have millions of viewers. WS: Today the format business is estab-

lished. Are broadcasters still very risk averse when it comes to trying something new? DE MOL: My theory is that the bigger the market, starting with the U.S. and the U.K. and then Germany, France, Italy and Spain, the more risk averse they are. That’s why I am absolutely not unhappy that I operate from a small-sized country, because the smaller the country, the lower the risk if you try something new. If something doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world. So I am very happy to operate from a country like Holland, where the willingness to try new things is much, much bigger than in countries like the U.S. or the U.K. or Germany. Holland is a market that is important enough that if you have a hit, everybody looks at it and wants to have it right away. 132

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WS: Is it possible nowadays to operate profitably as a boutique format company, or is it necessary to have scale in order to produce and distribute? DE MOL: On a long-term structural basis, you need scale. Of course you have exceptions where someone with a lucky shot in a boutique company creates one success that drives the company for three or four years. But if you want to play a substantial role in this business, you need a constant flow of creative ideas and that requires size. WS: How do you work with your team to foster as good a creative environment as possible? DE MOL: That’s very difficult because companies like Talpa Content don’t have a lot of examples from the rest of the world we can learn from. We are sort of inventing the wheel ourselves, so what we try to do is this: picture a pyramid and turn it upside, so the point is down and the wide side is up. Every month 50 to 100 one-page ideas come in to the top of the pyramid. Most of the ideas are developed internally. We also have a whole network with all kinds of relations both in Holland and outside Holland with people with different creative backgrounds who send us ideas, never a format, because there is a long way from an idea to a format. We have weekly meetings every Monday evening at six o’clock till sometimes two or three o’clock in the morning. We present all those new ideas and discuss them and out of those let’s say 50, we throw away 40 that are not good enough. We keep ten and say, Well, there might be something in there. And then we take those ten to the next step. Then in development meetings, three or four weeks later, a few of them come back and have grown from a one-page idea to a basic format with four or five pages of description. Then, again, 70 percent or 80 percent of them are killed; they are not good enough. By the time you get lower and lower in the pyramid, out of those 100 ideas you put in, you are very lucky and very successful if, at the end of the day, you have one successful format.

For more from John de Mol, see page 408.

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Mark Burnett Since ancient Greece, audiences have been enthralled by competitions. Mark Burnett has taken that love for a good challenge to new levels, creating shows that feature ordinary people using their wits and street smarts to survive on deserted islands, in corporate boardrooms or even in classroom settings.

WS: When viewers tune in to a show that

is produced by Mark Burnett, what can they expect? What are some of the signature characteristics of a Mark Burnett show? BURNETT: A Mark Burnett show should be recognizable as a brand. We are pretty true to our brand, which has high-quality visuals, editing and storytelling. It doesn’t matter whether it’s AreYou Smarter than a 5th Grader?, which is a game show where the storytelling is done

from the point of view of adults who really have trouble answering school questions for 10-year-olds because they can’t remember them; or whether it’s The Apprentice, which is the world’s toughest job interview; or of course Survivor, which involves building a world on a remote island with people you’ve never met before. Whether it’s any of these shows it’s about the storytelling, but there certainly is a visual look and a shooting style going back to 1995 with my first show Eco-Challenge that is recognizable in all of our shows. WS: What types of projects appeal to you? BURNETT: I’m very competitive and com-

petition shows are appealing to me. But it’s less about competition and more about surprising outcomes. The Apprentice and Survivor

STROKE OF GENIUS: Survivor, which Mark Burnett brought to the U.S., sparked an influx of reality competition series on the American networks. clearly are shows that have a weekly elimination and are done with a high concept—one is a job interview, one is surviving on an island. But then this year we’ve also produced a season of Design Star for HGTV.We are about to produce Your OWN Show, for OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, which is an honor. We’re really happy to be doing that. I do like competition. If you see Bully Beatdown, a show of ours that airs on MTV, it takes bullies, [who] have really given their victims a hard time, and we challenge them: “If you are so tough, get in an MMA [Mixed Martial Arts] ring with a professional fighter and see how tough you are and we’ll pay you $10,000.” All of these bullies accept the challenge and mostly they lose. It’s an antibullying show. I try to do things that have some sort of good values to them. But we do other shows, too. We do How’d You Get So Rich with Joan Rivers and it’s very funny.We do The People’s Choice Awards, which we are also distributing overseas. We do the MTV Movie Awards. It’s not all competition, although I suppose at some level People’s Choice and Movie Awards are competitive because awards are being given out. 134

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WS: Tell us about Sarah Palin’s Alaska and

what you found appealing about the project? BURNETT: Sarah Palin is obviously highly

recognizable and highly watchable. This is a project I really want to do. I really love Alaska. I thought there was no one who could speak to Alaska and the Alaskan way of life in a more compelling way than Governor Sarah Palin. So I was very excited when she agreed to do Sarah Palin’s Alaska. It’s a mix of Alaska the state, the hard-working lives of Alaskans and her own family and how they as Alaskans live their lives. In a way it’s a love letter to Alaska told through the eyes of Sarah Palin. She is extremely hard working and loves and knows her state. WS: Survivor has shown unprecedented longevity. What are the most important reasons it has done so well for so long? BURNETT: There is only one reason. In terms of the network shows, whether it’s Survivor, The Apprentice or Shark Tank, which is coming back on ABC for a second season, it all comes down to one thing, and that is storytelling. Everything comes down to characters and storytelling. That’s why there are a few shows in non-fiction television that have been around for a very long time, not all of them are mine, but they revolve around great storytelling. WS: What do you look for when you are casting, because I imagine that is a pretty critical element for your shows. BURNETT: Yes, whether you are making a Broadway show or you are doing television or movies, casting is everything. It’s all about people; it’s all about story, so we take casting very, very seriously. We’ve found some great characters over the years.We got Jeff Foxworthy on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, he’s great, so are the contestants [who] are playing that show.We consider everybody on the show and try to make them worthy of a good story. WS: Are there shows you haven’t done yet that you would really like to do? BURNETT: Yes, there are. I’m very interested in epic storytelling and I would like to try a mini-series.

For more from Mark Burnett, see page 409.

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Fernando Gaitán When Fernando Gaitán, the VP of product at Canal RCN in Colombia, decided to write a story about an ugly, unkempt secretary who worked for a tyrannical boss, he never thought the telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea would become a global phenomenon. Betty and other works created and written by Gaitán changed the telenovela genre.

then gave me scripts tossed out by actors at studios after filming, and I began to study them. I put a project together and I showed it to Bernardo Romero Pereiro, who at the time was the grandmaster of all screenwriters in Colombia. He liked what I wrote and gave me a stint on a comedy that aired at noon and that’s how I got started in television.

WS: How did you start out writing for television? GAITÁN: I started out as an investigative journalist and writer and I’ve always been keen on writing stories. A friend of mine told me a television producer wanted to meet me because writing entertaining stories came naturally to me. But at 22, I had never seen what a script looked like. My friend

WS: One of your novelas, Café con aroma de

mujer, was the first to bring Colombian product into the international spotlight. How did that come about? GAITÁN: It’s quite ironic, Café con aroma de mujer was never meant to be an export because at that time the only telenovelas around were Mexican. They had neutral accents and cities and food were never men-

STROKE OF GENIUS: Yo soy Betty, la fea has become a truly global telenovela, reaching markets worldwide as either a finished product or as a format. tioned. Novelas were made with the idea that the more neutral they were, the more they’d appeal to audiences. We never did anything like that because we didn’t have the experience or the volume to export. With Café con aroma de mujer we decided to write a story about the value of Colombian coffee, which has always been our sacred product, in the midst of the hardships we’ve always had.The idea was to create something with a redemptive quality for our country and was never thought of as an export. We were careful with the accents and local slang [to avoid upsetting] other regions because Colombia is split into five very different regions.We never thought it would become an extraordinary international Colombian success. So that was quite ironic for telenovelas because it did away with the idea that the genre couldn’t portray the country of origin. Café con aroma de mujer changed the way novelas were made in many places. People do like to know about the culture where novelas come from. WS: Colombian productions have often dealt with difficult, serious topics such as drug trafficking. 136

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GAITÁN: I think it was about time those

topics were discussed. It doesn’t necessarily benefit the country’s image but it was something that was bound to happen. Drug trafficking was something everyone was talking about—the Americans, the Spaniards, foreign producers and writers—everyone except us. It was as if we had a story tucked away, waiting to happen and I think it was only fair that Colombians began telling their own stories [instead of] having someone try to do so from their particular point of view. WS: Where did the inspiration to create Yo soy Betty, la fea come from? GAITÁN: Yo soy Betty, la fea came from observing women, observing the people at Canal RCN, the models, actresses, female anchors, the most glamorous and beautiful women, the world of beauty. These women coexist with secretaries, messengers and chauffeurs. It’s a very unique place because they all live in the same environment. A woman’s perspective here is interesting to me, that world of beauty I mentioned that is quite real. Once I saw how cruel a boss was to his secretary. He demeaned her and was very rude to her. She wasn’t very pretty and one day she got fed up and quit. Her boss felt his world crumble because his entire life was in her date book: his appointments, contacts, et cetera. That was the starting point for a series of events I began writing that eventually became Yo soy Betty, la fea. WS: Are you involved in the production of

adaptations for Yo soy Betty, la fea? GAITÁN: No, and it would be impossible

because every version, except for the American one, is more than 100 hours long. There are production guidelines producers have to follow in different parts of the world. Theses guidelines are very flexible and allow every Betty to adapt accordingly, or to customize situations or characters to the cultural context where the story is taking place. This has given the property tremendous freedom.What we do require is respect for the spirit of the story and the character. This has been done around the world with much success.

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David Shore He’s a brilliant diagnostician, armed with a keen intellect, Machiavellian instincts, brutal honesty and oh, yes, an addiction to Vicodin. He’s Dr. Gregory House, the complex protagonist of House, created by David Shore. The series, as intellectual and multilayered as the eponymous doctor, examines human behavior and motivations even more than medical mysteries.

WS: Going back to when you first came up with the idea for the show, you created this doctor, Gregory House, and then this tremendously talented actor Hugh Laurie auditioned.What has he brought to the role? SHORE: I knew the character was really complicated and offered a lot of opportunities. What Hugh allowed us to do was just that. And I honestly am not sure any other

actor could have. Through the whole auditioning process, I was starting to lament whether I could even pull this off.This character is so complicated, so full of contradictions and subtleties and then Hugh came in and I went, “Wow! That’s the guy.” And everyone went, “That’s the guy.” It was really one of those wonderful moments. I know the character would’ve been different had it been anyone else. And I also know this is what the character should be. So I thank Hugh for that. It’s a wonderful thing because Hugh also thinks of the character the same way I do and is excited about the same things I am with the character. So it’s a wonderful partnership to be able to work with an actor who can just heighten what you do on the page.

STROKE OF GENIUS: House has been billed as the most successful American drama export to date, and continues to draw strong ratings for FOX. WS: As House has progressed season after

season, what has been the greatest creative challenge: finding new patients and new obscure medical conditions or advancing the story lines and the relationships between the main characters? SHORE: The medical conditions are really tricky and require a lot of research, but they are sort of the bricks and mortar of it. The real heart of the show consists of the issues that our characters face and we try to embody those issues in the patients. And that takes off in themes we are going to be dealing with that week. Keeping those fresh has been the most challenging thing. WS: Do you map out an entire season in

advance or do you take each episode one by one? SHORE: It’s a bit of both. We map out generally half a season for the character arcs before the season starts, and then halfway through the season we usually sit down and talk about it again. So we map out the big character arcs and then the individual writers do their research and come up with a medical idea that has to be teamed with a 138

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patient idea and with what the issue is for that episode. Then I and the other executive producers, Russel Friend, Garrett Lerner and Tommy Moran, we’ll work with the individual writers to develop the story and also figure out where that particular issue fits best into the arc we’re working on thematically, and what opportunity [it allows us to explore] within that arc.That’s really the way it works. WS: Is House going to have to face up to

his brokenness and vulnerabilities now that he is in a relationship with Lisa Cuddy? SHORE: Yes and no. One of the themes of this show is people don’t change—it’s something House has said many times—but people want to change. Life is in the striving. And last year [after rehab and therapy] did House change? Maybe a little; not a lot. I don’t want him to change a lot, personally. It’s about him wanting to become a happier person and that’s what the show has always been about: can he achieve happiness? How can he achieve it? Can he stay clean and sober and with rehab and therapy? Can he do it? And there were many decisions he made last year that he wouldn’t have made if not for the influence of [his therapist] Dr. Nolan. We are going to see the same thing with Cuddy this year. But it’s baby steps and it’s tricky. It’s two steps forward, one step backward, or often one step forward and two steps backward. It’s all about striving. WS: House has an amazing relationship with Dr. James Wilson. Is there a chemistry that sometimes happens between actors that you can’t imagine when you’re writing the scenes? SHORE: There is chemistry and Hugh Laurie [House] and Robert Sean Leonard [Wilson] are so good together. It’s the same thing with Hugh [House] and Lisa Edelstein [Cuddy]. The two of them together—it’s so interesting it just pops off the screen. You could write anything for them and it’s going to be wrought with sexual tension by the time you shoot it. But Robert and Hugh are fantastic. It’s one of the things I’m actually most proud of in

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pursuit of truth is really the challenge. Constantly striving to find the right answer to any given issue is what excites me. WS: Those serious issues that make viewers

really think are often interspersed with incredible humor. Is that difficult to do? SHORE: Yes, it’s tricky, but I do think it’s real. That’s another thing I’m very proud of, the comedy. To me, making people think is what this show is [about]. Ultimately these characters aren’t real, as much as we strive to make them seem real, but the issues they deal with are actually real. That’s what I find exciting and interesting. The comedy is just fun, but it’s also real. People have a sense of humor even in dark times. It also says something of our characters, and by the way, you asked what Hugh brings and, boy, that is really something invaluable. There are very few actors who can walk into a scene dealing with death and dying, make a smartassed joke in the middle of that scene, have it be funny, and not lose the dramatic import of the scene. And Hugh pulls that off.

House

this show. On TV there’s a bit of a dearth of exploration of male friendship and it’s really interesting—two guys who are friends and actually care about each other and aren’t just friends for the sake of trying to find a girl. They’re not just wingmen, they’re actually friends living life and trying to figure it out. WS: The show often deals with really seri-

ous issues of right and wrong, telling the truth, proper or unacceptable behavior. Is

there a moral compass among the writers? How do you decide what is right or wrong or what the characters should do or not do? SHORE: We try to make these characters as real as possible and hopefully the writers and producers are as real as possible. There is no individual moral compass. I think an individual moral compass would be boring. The great thing about these questions is they are difficult questions. We never end an episode with, Ah, okay that’s the right answer. The 140

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WS: All good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Do you already have in mind—whenever the last season comes— how you want the show to end? SHORE: When I conceived of this, it would have been just too arrogant of me to be thinking, How do I want this to be ending in season eight? At that point I would’ve been thrilled to get eight episodes out of it! Yes, all good stories have a beginning, middle and end, but lives don’t. Chronologically they have a beginning, a middle and an end. But they don’t structurally have a beginning, middle and end. I view this as being House’s life. I’ve got some ideas of how I want to wrap it up, but that’s not the most important thing to me. It’s the day-to-day aspects of his life, the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of truth on a day-to-day basis that excites me. WS: Do you ever think about what you

might want to do after House? SHORE: Relax! Yes, I do think about it. I’ve

got a few ideas, but this show has been perfect for me for all the reasons we’ve talked about. It has allowed me to be funny. It has allowed me to explore [relationships] and philosophical issues. What more could a writer ask for?

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Shonda Rhimes Medical dramas are not new to television, but with Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, Shonda Rhimes infused a new level of emotional engagement into the genre. She offered an inside look at doctors’ relationships and aspirations—both petty and noble—in a way that had never been seen before, and enveloped the scenes in musical montages.

WS: To what do you attribute Grey’s Anato-

my’s longevity? RHIMES: One of the key things that hap-

pened early on was that the audience became very invested in the characters. Viewers feel personally attached to them and care what happens to them and that helps the show keep going. We also try to reinvent it every year; we try to make an

entirely different template for what the show can be each season.

WS: How did your new show, Off the Map,

come about? RHIMES: Off the Map is a show about a

WS: Can you give me a sense of what we

can expect in season seven? RHIMES: Of course not! [Laughs] I would love to tell you, but no. One of the things that is very important is, I have always said that the show at its very essence is a love story between Meredith and Cristina—a story of two friends.We’re going to keep coming back to that core, as well as watching all the characters grow and change. WS: As you set out on a new season do you

have the entire season mapped out? RHIMES: I come in at the beginning of every season pitching the end. I say, here’s

STROKE OF GENIUS: Grey’s Anatomy, which put a new, female-skewing spin on the medical drama genre, remains among the top-rated shows in the U.S. what the last episode of the show is going to be. Sometimes it’s just an image. Last season I came in and said, “I want a gunman in the hospital and I want it to unfold like this.” And then you write towards it. WS: What are the advantages of working

group of doctors who are working in a fictional Central American country. There’s a clinic that serves the community around it, both tourists and locals. And these young doctors rotate through as sort of a residency. These are doctors who are at the end of the line in terms of their careers, like this might be their last chance to really make it as a doctor. WS: How are you going to juggle three shows? RHIMES: The same way I went about jug-

gling two. I feel like this is a little bit like having babies. Everybody says having one baby completely changes your life, having two is a shock to the system, but anything after two is just throwing another kid on the pile! It’s fine because once you can do two you can do anything. I do feel like it was a shock to the system to do two shows, but now I’m in a place where doing two shows feels completely normal and almost like I might have too much free time on my hands, so I’m excited to jump into three. Off the Map is really going to be Jenna Bans’ show. I get to be the happy grandmother who holds the baby and gives it back, as much as possible.

that way? RHIMES: I don’t know how else you work.

If you don’t have a road map then you’re literally flying blind the entire time and things can start to seem very disjointed. If I know where we’re going to end, the journey to get there might change along the way, but I at least know where we’re headed.

WS: Music is a big part of Grey’s Anatomy.

Why was that important for you? RHIMES: I was raised on MTV, so it made

sense to me that everything have a soundtrack going through it. I don’t think I ever thought that our use of music was unusual until people started to say it was. It just felt right to me. It’s how we told the story.

WS: Private Practice has been dealing with

important issues—what it means to be a fit parent, what it means to be in a relationship. Do these themes come from you personally or are they decided jointly with your team of writers? RHIMES: I work with a team of writers, but they are personal themes to me. I feel like the difference between Grey’s and Private is that Grey’s, no matter how old everybody is, is about teenagers and Private Practice is about grown-ups. And I love both sides of it. 142

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WS: Why is the medical theme one you seem to keep going back to? Is there a personal connection to it? RHIMES: Well, here’s what’s funny, there’s not! With Grey’s I really loved the medicine. Private Practice was a spin-off. [It centered around the character of ] Addison, who was a doctor, so it had to be a medical show. On Off the Map, Jenna Bans, who wrote the pilot, had worked on Grey’s and

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Private Practice

on Private Practice as a writer. She came to me and said, “I really want to do this show about doctors in the jungle.” And I said, “Can it be anything other than doctors?” And she pitched it and was very excited about it and so I said “Okay, I guess it’s doctors in the jungle.” But for me, I can’t wait to do something that has nothing to do with medicine. But I love the fact that Jenna is as passionate about Off the Map as I was about Grey’s and Private. WS: How much research goes into the medical story lines? RHIMES: A lot of research. All three shows have a full-time medical researcher. We also have a doctor on staff as a writer on each one of our shows. And we have technical consultants who work on the stages to teach the actors how to do the medicine and also to make sure that the medicine is accurate and looks right. For every episode we consult doctors; specialists read our scripts and tell us what works and what doesn’t and help us keep things truthful.

We’re pretty dedicated to it because one of the goals for me, as the shows got more popular, was realizing that we could get a lot of young women to think that science was sexy, that they could become doctors. So we want the shows to be as accurate as possible. We want to pay respect to the doctors who do this every day and we also want to make it so that when somebody’s watching the shows they say, “I want to do that.” We are giving them a real representation of what it is that they want to do. WS: A lot of people talk about the diversity

of your casts. Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where that’s just a given and it doesn’t have to be a conversation? RHIMES: People say it’s so great. And I say, true diversity will happen when you stop bringing it up. There’s been a lot of conversation about it. What’s good about that is perhaps it will make more people have conversations about it for their own shows and that might help to make a change. I also still think, sadly, there aren’t that many roles out 144

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there for actors of color. I feel like people define roles, saying this role is for a white actor and this role is for somebody of color. We never do that. We write roles and people step into them and it doesn’t really matter what color they are. And when that starts to happen more, perhaps we’ll start to have some real change. WS: Years from now, as people look back

on your body of work, what contribution to TV drama do you want to be recognized for? RHIMES: I really like that Grey’s and Private and to some extent Off the Map are shows about strong competitive women who are unashamed of being competitive. The fact that they’re smart is just as important as the fact that they’re pretty to look at or whatever it is that people like to say about women on television. I feel like defiantly competitive women who are maybe reluctant to find their prince are more interesting than the characters who are just happy girlfriends and happy wives.

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Jenji Kohan Pay-TV series are known for pushing boundaries, but a widowed suburban mom who has fallen on hard times and sells marijuana to support her family? This is precisely the premise upon which Jenji Kohan has created Weeds. Few, if any, shows explore human flaws and frailties with as much candor, irreverence and humor.

WS: What first sparked the idea for Weeds? KOHAN: I wanted to do my version of an

outlaw show. I had been watching The Sopranos and The Shield. I loved these flawed antiheroes and I wanted to do my version of that. WS: What is the appeal of flawed characters? KOHAN: I’d just come off a very rough

experience at a network and my goal was

just to trade money for freedom! I was really tired of having to create characters who were very black and white, hero or villain and the hero could never do anything bad and the villain could never do anything good. You find what works and you do it week after week. I just thought it was so limiting and not what I wanted to write and not what I thought were the best parts of me. I went looking for an environment where I could create very flawed and relatable people. Because we are all flawed. What was presented on network television very often was not as relatable because we’re all struggling and we’re all trying inherently to do our best, but we fail and then we have to get back up and try again. I love the gray areas. I

STROKE OF GENIUS: An irreverent comedy about a pot-dealing mom, Weeds has been a brand-defining hit for premium network Showtime.

WS: How is working for Showtime differ-

ent from working for a broadcast network? KOHAN: Oh, it’s night and day. I feel like

the networks and certain cable channels are television by committee. I’m a true believer in a singular voice and letting people do their jobs. My job is to write and produce. Let me do that if I’ve proven I can deliver for you. We virtually get no notes from the programming executives. They will express their opinions certainly but they’ve given us an extraordinary amount of freedom and I know what a gift that is. Our job is to not disappoint them and not abuse that freedom. And we don’t wait for outside feedback. We say, Wait, wait, this can be better, or Let’s reexamine this part. In a way it’s good to police yourself. WS: It’s your baby, who’s going to take care of it better than you are? KOHAN: Right! WS: Is it true you like to write in coffee shops

and cafés and how did that come about? live in the gray areas and I like to write in the gray areas. WS: The moral code of many of the char-

acters in Weeds is definitely questionable, but they still care about doing the right thing even if it isn’t always the conventional right thing. KOHAN: I tend to be a moral relativist and I think my 10-year-old inherited this. He just wrote a paper on Alexander the Great, and said, “I don’t think he was so great to the people he was conquering.” That’s my boy! But there’s an inherent yearning of mankind to have a moral code. So, in the show it’s kind of a postconventional morality, where you may not be following the conventional wisdom or moral codes of your environment, but you’re creating them for yourself and you’re creating rules you don’t break. You see a lot of that in shows about the Mafia. It’s a post-conventional morality, but you still create that [structure] in yourself because you’re human and it’s hard to thwart the system or play against the mores at large. 146

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KOHAN: When I’m in production I’m sort

of chained to the office because I have to edit, I have to watch the set, and do all sorts of things. But I like noise and activity around me when I’m writing. I like coffee shops. I like cafés. I love public libraries although I can’t snack, so that’s a little harder! But I do love being surrounded by activity and voices and noises and distractions; in a strange way it makes me focus more. If I’m alone in a room I’m too vulnerable to my own demons! WS: Some of the scenes in Weeds are posi-

tively hilarious. What type of environment do you create for your writers to get that sort of crazy off-the-wall comedy? KOHAN: I think my writers are like an island of misfit toys and they are such creative, quirky, unique individuals and really talented. It’s an easy room. Everyone is lovely and nothing is taboo at all. There’s a lot of discussion of personal experiences or things people want to write about or talk about. It’s a very safe, open environment. It’s dirty and it’s funny and it’s very food-oriented. We love eating! And we sit and talk for weeks and weeks.

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KOHAN: Certainly behind the scenes, and

Weeds

this is something I’ve been very serious about, there is a no-asshole policy. That is so important in the work we do. No matter how talented someone may be, if they make other people uncomfortable, or make writers feel that if they open up they are going to be attacked, or if there is too much infighting or competition, you are not going to get good work.You need an environment where people are supportive. That’s not to say we don’t wrestle with each other, but there is a level of safety and there is no cruelty—that is so important. In staffing, so many people mistake that behavior for genius. But it’s truly unacceptable and you don’t get the best work out of people from fear or from hurt. We are already hurt and we are pulling [material] from that. Also, it’s the war on political correctness here. No tiptoeing around. We are on pay cable so we can say whatever we want. We don’t want to tip sacred cows just for the sake of tipping them, but if given the opportunity, I don’t want to pull any punches here because this is our chance, this is our soapbox and this is our fun. And we all get to rebel a little and play a little and it’s really important that it’s unfiltered. WS: We can’t talk about the show without

WS: What creative challenges do you face

heading into the sixth season? KOHAN: You don’t want to repeat yourself. When I worked in network television they would be very happy if you’d do the same show every week and everyone felt very comfortable. We don’t want to feel comfortable. We want to feel engaged. Every year we come

in and ask, All right, what are we going to do this year so everyone is talking about things that are relevant to them and to the world? And what can we do to change it up so that no one is bored and we’re still interested? WS: Is there anything that characterizes a Jenji Kohan show and writers’ room? 148

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talking about the cast. Was that a gift from the heavens or what? KOHAN: It truly was. It was one of those things where they came to us—we wished them into existence! The manager of MaryLouise Parker [who plays Nancy] called us and said, “Mary-Louise has read this, likes it and wants to do it.”You never get that call. There is usually all that static, “Well, you know, if you make us an offer we’ll let our actor read it.”That is such bullshit.You want an actor who wants to come on board who is already enthusiastic about the project. And when you get a call from someone like Mary-Louise it’s a slamdunk. When Justin Kirk auditioned [for the role of Andy] he was one of the last auditions of the day. It was getting dark and he walked in and the angels sang! It was extraordinary. We got really lucky with the kids. We got lucky with Elizabeth Perkins [Celia]. It’s one of those lightning-in-a-bottle things where every once in a while all the elements coalesce.That’s been Weeds from the beginning. It’s been an extraordinary ride!

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Michelle and Robert King When Michelle and Robert King came up with the idea of a wife whose husband is an elected official convicted in a sex and corruption scandal, they crafted an intelligent show that offers a realistic portrayal of women, men and the pursuit of power. The Good Wife is one of CBS’s top-rated series.

WS: Where did the idea for the show came

from and what served as inspiration for it? MICHELLE KING: We’ve always loved raw shows and raw films. There were a number of political sex scandals that happened one after another and we noticed that really the most interesting person in the frame was not the politician who had sinned, but his wife, who was forced to stand next to him at every press conference. We just started won-

dering, “What is this woman thinking?” and that spurred us on.

fewest lines in the scene. We want to see how Alicia is judging the situation to compare it to how we’re judging the situation.

WS: You have several strong women in the

show who have made very different choices in their lives. Does the show want to say anything about the state of women today and the state of feminism? MICHELLE KING: It was absolutely a deliberate choice to have the women in the show—and we liked the idea of different generations—[have] different points of view on what were appropriate choices for a woman to make. ROBERT KING: Part of this came from the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama primary when there was this very interesting generational gap between older feminists and

STROKE OF GENIUS: Combining complex female characters and ripped-from-the-headlines stories, The Good Wife was the 2009-10 season’s breakout drama. younger feminists. The older feminists thought, “Oh, this is our first chance to get a woman in the presidency,” and other, younger feminists who said, “Yeah, but I’m voting with my heart.” It dramatized the differences in attitude toward women in power. Another thing we’re having fun with—and I would say this is maybe more comic than dramatic—is that women grasp for power as much as men, the show is just exploring the other ways that they do it. WS: How do you use very full female characters to drive the narrative of the show? ROBERT KING: Even though there are a lot of strong women on our show, we don’t really differentiate their function. We don’t say, “Oh, this is the male portion of the show or this is the female portion.” We do try to write the women from the female’s perspective because on so many shows that involve women, it feels like you’re on the outside, not on the inside. We’re very much a pointof-view show. In any scene in court, or working on a case, we’re always telling the directors to shoot it from [the protagonist] Alicia’s point of view, even if she has the 150

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WS: Is it unusual for the two of you to be in Los Angeles and for the show to be produced across the country in New York? How do you manage that? MICHELLE KING: It’s unusual; it’s not unheard-of. I know that Law & Order is that way and I think Damages is, too. ROBERT KING: For every episode, we meet with the director for a marathon eighthour meeting.We’re on a Polycom system— a video-conferencing system—and we discuss basically every second of the script. We are in constant touch with the actors, by e-mail, phone calls and Polycom, to tell them where they are in a legal case, where they are in their lives. And we have a very good relationship with Brooke Kennedy, who is another executive producer, who is our eyes and ears out there. As she says, “If we cough out here, they sneeze out there.” We sound like Mussolinis, but no, it goes both ways. If they do something really swell in the dailies, then we start writing toward it. WS: Do the actors add something of their own? ROBERT KING: We’re constantly surprised

when we have a line that we thought meant A and they take it in the direction of B. It’s as if you’re an artist and suddenly the painting starts moving in a different direction.You have to react to it.We’re finding that the actors have their own minds, all to our benefit. Sometimes they improve on some very bad lines! WS: I imagine you wanted this show to be successful, but this one really went through the roof. Did you expect that? ROBERT KING: No. Not in a million years. It felt very specific and very limited in its appeal because we have a woman lead [who] is in her early forties. A mom show, there hasn’t been a really successful one for a while. The only thing we felt we had going for us is that CBS is very, very smart at launching shows.They have it down to a science and it’s really cool; it’s like having the biggest guy on campus on your side.

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Tandem’s The Lost Future.

Leading the Charge From high-budget events to less expensive thrillers and family fare, mini-series and TV movies continue to be solid business. By Anna Carugati In an increasingly crowded media landscape in which viewers have a sea of programming choices, broadcast and cable networks often need beacons—glossy, event miniseries and TV movies—that can make a big splash and draw a substantial audience. But no expensive high-quality show is an island; each requires

financing pulled together from various sources, and today’s event mini-series and TV movies have to be the right topic, the right length and the right budget. Like so many TV genres, event mini-series and TV movies had their birth in the U.S. decades ago, when all three networks had regular slots for made-for-television 152

movies. ABC, CBS and NBC were able to clear their schedules for powerhouses like Roots, The Thorn Birds or V. “When you look back at those years, that was a terrific creative heyday for television,” notes David Zucker, the president of television at Scott Free Productions, which has co-produced a number of mini-

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series, including The Gathering Storm for HBO, The Andromeda Strain for A&E and more recently Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth for Starz. “But that was a time when there were three networks that really controlled the great percentage of the market, and they were able to not only put significant dollars into producing those projects, but they

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as well as bank loans and Tandem’s own risk money, “So this actually hits a risk level that not a lot of studios or independent production companies are willing to take.” As Bauer points out, Pillars was not financed purely from sales to international broadcasters. “Does the international marketplace actually have the means to produce $40 million on its own? No, it doesn’t. However, if one believed in the project and took a calculated risk to go back into the U.S. market and sell it, or if one had a partner in the U.S. who was willing to work with the international voice, then, yes, that’s an opportunity. So there are ways of financing these projects that don’t make one network carry the full freight of the production.” Tandem and Scott Free are developing two more long-running mini-series, the sequel to Pillars, World Full exposure: SevenOne’s The Whore is set in the Middle Ages, and is based on the international Without End, another eightbestseller by Iny Lorentz. hour event mini-series for were also able to put the market- market. Now it’s just the opposite, the Starz; and Pompeii, a four-hour ing dollars in,” Zucker adds. U.S. is the last piece, in some cases it’s event, based on the book by Today the market has fragmented really an after-market sale.” Robert Harris, which also has and there are few networks that can Morayniss calls for a reinvention Peace Out Productions and Sony afford the kind of investment of the big-budget mini-series. “I Pictures Television as partners. required to produce and promote don’t think any of the main key long-form mini-series. Most often, buyers or even some of the buyers ATTENTION GRABBERS the longer versions, ranging from six of the smaller digital channels or The big markets, like Germany, to even ten or more hours, find a pay services are closing the door on France, Spain, Italy and the U.K. home on pay services, but there are long form, but you have to figure still have an appetite for certain hissome broadcast networks willing to out a new way of putting those torical epic movies. take a chance, if the project is right. projects together.” Tele München Group (TMG) in Tandem Communications found Germany has been producing them an innovative way of funding the for some time quite successfully, PUTTING IT TOGETHER $40 million eight-hour The Pillars including the 2x90-minute Sea Wolf, “There is a demand internationally for certain types of bigger budget of the Earth, which it co-produced based on Jack London’s classic, and with Muse Entertainment in epic movies and mini-series, but the more recently, Moby Dick, a TV Canada and Scott Free. appetite in the U.S. is not where it event adaptation of Herman Rola Bauer, a partner and man- Melville’s celebrated novel produced used to be,” says John Morayniss, the aging director of Tandem, explains for a hefty $25 million. CEO of Entertainment One (eOne) “RTL was the principal German Television. “In the past, we saw a that Pillars was produced as a substantial number of those big German-Canadian co-production, broadcaster on Moby Dick along mini-series being driven by the U.S. along with international pre-sales with ORF, RHI Films and Power, 154

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and it has been sold to a great number of other territories,” says Herbert Kloiber, the chairman and majority shareholder of TMG.“Not unlike Sea Wolf, Moby Dick was shot to a large degree in Canada with all of the off-shore exteriors around Malta.There was a big ship that was converted to be the whaler Pequod, which is in the period of about 1860. It was quite ambitious and it’s got William Hurt and Ethan Hawke as the two protagonists.” Kloiber and his team are also developing an event movie based on the von Trapp family, of The Sound of Music fame. This is not a musical, rather a look at what happened to the family before and after they moved to America.TMG is also working with Televisa, jointly developing a script about the life of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. TMG is careful to keep its miniseries to two parts because longer prime-time minis can be quite challenging for commercial broadcasters to schedule. While pay-TV channels can handle six or more hours, broadcast networks are leery of having to clear their schedules for several nights dedicated to the same program. First of all because so many networks now schedule their prime time evenings by theme, say, Monday crime series, Tuesday big reality shows, Wednesday football, Thursday comedy and Friday blockbuster movies. Secondly, given the high license fees and promotion costs involved, long-form minis have to score audience shares that are close to double the network’s average audience. Say, for example, a network’s average share is about 11 percent. In order to recoup license fees and promotion costs from advertising, a long-running mini-series has to garner audience shares of at least 20 percent. And if the first run doesn’t rate well, then re-runs might even do worse and, in today’s economic environment, no broadcaster allocates 100 percent of the program value on the first run. If a broadcaster acquires or pro-

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The big day arrives: TMG has scored with Rosamunde Pilcher’s Four Seasons collection.

duces a very expensive mini-series, it needs at least three runs and in some territories it might even need five runs to recoup its investment. Nevetheless, an appealing project that creates an event a broadcaster can use to help differentiate itself from the competition will always find a home. The right subject matter is key to any mini-series. “We’ve been looking at mini-series for a long time and always knew that we needed to have a hook,” says Fernando Szew, the CEO of MarVista Entertainment. “Broadcasters need to spend money, energy and resources toward marketing so that the audience stays tuned in not just for one night, but

also for a second night.” What MarVista found was The Witches of Oz, a two-part prime-time fantasy adventure with a creative modern twist on the classic tale, starring Christopher Lloyd and Sean Astin. MOVIE MAGIC

While multi-part mini-series may be more challenging to schedule, glossy big-budget event TV movies are definitely finding buyers in several territories. “We have a very healthy amount of movies, and we see a clear trend in the market toward one-part movies,” says Jens Richter, the managing director of SevenOne International, whose new titles at

Looking bright: Many of Incendo’s movies, including Wandering Eye, feature female leads. 156

MIPCOM include: Blackout, a 90minute thriller in which a giant power failure plunges the city of Berlin into a deadly turmoil; The Whore, a 2-hour movie set in the Middle Ages; and The Sleeper’s Wife; a 110-minute thriller about a woman whose world is turned upside down when she finds out that her husband is a terrorist sleeper. SevenOne also produces slates of movies. “We have a lineup of about 15 other TV movies in the genres of romantic comedies, comedies and thrillers, but all very much on the entertaining side,” says Richter. “We don’t deal with heavy social issues. The audience wants to be entertained. That has been a key trend over the last two years. Four or five years ago we would have certainly had a couple of movies dealing with heavy issues like eating disorders, rape or divorce. There is not a single story like this in our entire current lineup. It wouldn’t sell; the audience has no appetite for it.” These TV movies are produced mainly in Germany and cofinanced and co-produced with France, Italy, Spain or Austria.“Their primary market is Continental Europe, but we also sell to Asia and Latin America, and we have sold to Univision in the Hispanic market in the U.S.,” says Richter. Another supplier of German TV movies is ZDF Enterprises [ZDFE]. “We are often able to have more than a dozen every six months,” says

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Alexander Coridass, ZDFE’s president and CEO.These movies, either detective stories or romantic comedies, provide locations, settings and situations that European viewers can relate to. For MIPCOM, ZDFE is focusing on romantic TV movies based on books by well-known novelists such as Katie Fforde, Emilie Richards, Barbara Wood, Inga Lindström and Rosamunde Pilcher “We hear from our clients in Spain, France, Italy, in the Nordic countries, in Benelux and Central Europe that they like stories that relate to their own lives,” adds Coridass. But he points out that buyers do not prefer European-made movies over the ones produced North America—they want both. In fact, TV movies are so popular in countries like Italy, France and Spain that a number of North American distributors are finding good business opportunities. “A lot of European networks are looking for good movies in their late afternoon and post prime-time slots and that’s causing a lot of demand in the marketplace—the key territories where demand is really strong continue to be France, Italy and Spain, says Gene George, the executive VP of worldwide distribution at Starz Media. So important are these three markets that they generally make up 50 percent to 60 percent of the international revenues generated by a TV movie.

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Ready to play: eOne produced the TV movie Made for MTV, which has only recently started airing TV movies. THE TRIUMVIRATE

This “triumvirate” as Ken DuBow, the president of Opus Distribution, refers to Italy, France and Spain, is key to his business, and broadcasters in these three countries, like TF1, M6, Mediaset and Antena 3 TV, pay high license fees and are especially keen on thrillers featuring women in jeopardy. “It’s one of the genres that I focus on, it’s certainly a breadand-butter business for my company,” says DuBow. In fact, Next Stop Murder, which will premiere on Lifetime Movie Network, is reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, and DuBow has sold it to M6 in France and to the distributors Dall’Angelo Pictures for Italy and Drim Tim for Spain. Those same two distributors, along with TF1 for France, also acquired the thriller Locked Away, which premieres on Lifetime. Incendo is also producing female thrillers for Lifetime and is finding an equally receptive international market. “We produce five films a year,” says Gavin Reardon, in charge of international sales and co-productions at Incendo. “Most of our clients are eager for that product and the main countries are Italy, Spain, France, Eastern Europe and a lot of other territories, for instance the Middle East and South Africa and Australia are interested in the product.” Among the titles Incendo will be offering buyers at MIPCOM are the thrillers Wandering Eye, about a woman who finds herself in danger after meeting a man through a net-

working website; Dead Lines, about a fashion designer who realizes she must act quickly to save her career and the life of her daughter; and Exposed, about a teacher who is the target of a kidnapper. Starz Media has had success not only with thrillers but also with holiday-themed movies. “We’re offering about eight to ten TV movies a year and we’re focused on the ones that can fit primarily in the late afternoon and post prime-time slots, such as action disaster films where there are families in jeopardy,” says George. “We also do a lot of Christmas movies. That’s one of our areas of expertise. A lot of broadcasters are looking to us as one of their key suppliers of holiday movies.” One such title that Starz is bringing to MIPCOM is The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation, a sequel to last year’s The Dog Who Saved Christmas. On the slate of new movies is also the thriller Perfect Student about a well-respected criminology professor who defends her star student from charges that she brutally murdered her roommate.

dows,” says Szew. “We believe the tween demographic is completely in a growth stage.” In fact, there are new players in the business, and the movies they are commissioning are finding a second life in the international market. “New networks are now entering the TV-movie market,” says eOne’s Morayniss. “We have recently done

Made [about a 16-year-old who wants to become a cheerleader] for MTV. CMT [Country Music Television] is entering that market and Syfy is still doing a lot of creaturefeature type movies. I don’t think there are necessarily big license fees attached to them, but buyers do exist for those movies. “At the end of the day,” continues Morayniss, “We are in the business of building assets. The bigger-budget, better-cast movies tend to have longer-term and bigger asset value, but it’s also a portfolio approach. Smallerbudget movies are still very commercial, maybe each individual movie isn’t as profitable as a bigbudget movie, but if you look at it as a portfolio and say, we’re going to do half a dozen movies a year that are on the lower budget side and are driven from the U.S., that is an interesting business.”

FAMILY FARE

The TV-movie business continues to be a good one for distributors with subject matter that has international appeal. MarVista has had success with family movies, and now with 16 Wishes, produced for Disney Channel, the company is finding great potential in tween and teen movies. “We will be licensing the free-TV rights to 16 Wishes and other win158

In the holiday spirit: The success of Starz’s holiday hit The Dog Who Saved Christmas has led to the development of a sequel.

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one on one fter several years of struggling financially, Sony finally turned a profit in the first quarter of this year. This demonstrates that Howard Stringer’s strategy is working—at least for now. As chairman, CEO and president of Sony Corporation, Stringer has had the daunting task of reinvigorating and restructuring the consumer-electronics giant, whose holdings include a Hollywood studio and a bouquet of channels around the world. Simply put, Sony, once associated with super-cool products, had lost its momentum. Starting with the Walkman in 1979, Sony had released a string of awe-inspiring devices, including the first CD player and the PlayStation. The company later made a series of missteps with the Walkman and lost its cool factor, which was quickly snatched up by Apple. Someone had to shake up the tradition-bound conglomerate.

Getting the Japanese behemoth, which posted $77 billion in revenues in fiscal 2009, and its 168,000 employees back on track was quite a challenge, made all the more difficult by the fact that Stringer is not Japanese. He is a Welshman, knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1999. Not having come up through the ranks in Tokyo made it difficult to break through Japanese corporate culture, reflected in Sony’s abundance of executive “lifers” who aimed to spend their entire career at the company. Not being Japanese allowed him, however, to make the necessary layoffs, reportedly tens of thousands of them, and gradually coax the company’s dozens of divisions, which had previously operated as separate fiefdoms, to work together and share information. There was much in his background that allowed Stringer to accomplish this. As a child he developed the skill of adapting to new environments—a skill he had to have in order to survive 15 different moves before the age of 18 to follow his father, an Air Force officer. After moving to the U.S., he was hired by the prestigious documentary unit CBS Reports. As a television producer he learned how to get people to collaborate and find consensus among many differing views. This skill continued to serve him well when he was appointed head of CBS News and then president of the network. Stringer joined Sony Corporation of America in 1997, where as president he was responsible for the music, studio and electronics divisions. Under his leadership, Sony Music merged with BMG [Bertelsmann Music Group], creating the world’s second-largest music company. And along with Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Comcast and other partners, Sony acquired MGM and its legendary library. Appointed chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation in 2005, Stringer quickly realized he was managing creative, technical and business people who literally as well as figuratively did not speak the same language. He got them to work together through his “Sony United” strategy; one of his first big accomplishments was leading an industry drive to back the Blu-ray format rather than the competing HD-DVD. Buoyed by that success, and by improved sales of TV sets and other consumer products, Stringer is now confident that 3D is the way of the future. He wants to envelop consumers in the high-quality transformative experience of 3D with a “lens-to-living-room” approach: feature films shot on Sony cameras and screened in theaters with Sony projectors, 3D movies and video games, the 3D Bravia TV set, the PlayStation3, which not only plays 3D games, but also DVDs and Blu-ray discs. There are even 3D still and video cameras for consumers. In this exclusive interview, Stringer talks about the future of Sony, embracing the company’s tagline: “Believe that anything you imagine, you can make real.”

Howard Stringer Sony Corporation

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one on one WS: Why is developing 3D so

important for Sony at this point? STRINGER: We believe that 3D is the next great consumer entertainment experience, both in theaters and in the home. Sony is the only company in the world that can bring together all of the critical assets to create the very best 3D experience. Our not-so-secret weapon in the battle to develop this market globally is a deep reservoir of expertise and experience across Sony—from consumer and professional electronics to software to content in the form of movies, video games and music. For 3D to be successful, it’s imperative that the customer experience great 3D, and Sony is aggressively doing everything it can, internally and externally, across all of our companies, to ensure that that happens. We led the way with the opening of the Sony 3D Technology Center on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, California, earlier this year. It is dedicated to training and nurturing a community of experts throughout the entertainment industry to produce the best 3D possible. Nearly 400 people have already completed our training on the SPE lot, and another 200 participated in classes held this summer at the BBC Studios in London. The waiting list to get into

the program numbers 450. So, clearly, the industry’s intention, as well as Sony’s, to produce much more 3D content is quite strong. WS: Tell us about Sony’s “lens-toliving-room” 3D strategy. How are you getting all of Sony’s product lines to work together in 3D? STRINGER: All of Sony’s many parts are working like a wellrehearsed orchestra on a philharmonic stage with respect to 3D. From early in their developmental processes, all of our businesses are connected and engaged so they can tap into individual and specific expertise to make any particular 3D product, whether electronics, content or software, the best it can be. Our unique 3D technologies; professional 3D cameras and equipment that capture, manipulate and edit images; integrated work-flow solutions for professional production; sophisticated, industry-leading 4K projection systems that display 3D films in theaters; studios and creators that produce state-of-the-art film, television and game content;

Game on: The PlayStation 3, in addition to being a game console, doubles as a Blu-ray player and allows users to watch TV shows online. 208

and, of course, televisions, cameras, Blu-ray players, and PlayStation 3s— as well as many other devices currently being developed—cover all of the 3D bases. Here’s an example of our strategy at work. When our engineers in Tokyo were developing and finetuning plans for Sony’s first 3D television, they spent a lot of time collaborating with the 3D experts at Sony Pictures in California— including Sony Pictures Technical and its Colorworks and Digital Authoring Center units, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Imageworks—to learn everything they could about what goes into creating and displaying highquality 3D programming. These Sony groups jointly tested and evaluated various technical systems within the TV sets.The engineers at Sony Computer Entertainment also collaborated to make sure that the televisions would provide a great 3D gaming experience as well. All of that information sharing was a critical step in producing the superb Sony 3D Bravia televisions that are being sold today. WS: Many consumers recently invested in wide-screen HD TV sets. How do you plan to convince consumers to make a new investment in 3D TVs, and how important is content in convincing consumers to adopt new devices? STRINGER: We believe that 3D in the home is a natural evolution, much like the transition to color from black and white, or standard definition to high definition. While we don’t expect that all consumers will replace their HD televisions with 3D sets overnight, we do believe that, over the next few years, they will experience the best of 3D and make the switch. Good 3D is a rich adventure that immerses the viewer in a unique experience—and the closest to reality one can get. As was the case with the widespread consumer embrace of HD, quality 3D content is the key to 3D adoption in the home. We’re

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off to a very strong start in the 3D theatrical arena, and that market will continue to grow. Sports enthusiasts, nature enthusiasts and gamers will also drive this market. WS: Is 3D only for large-screen

TVs or would it also work for smaller devices, and how will 3D affect the production of films and television programs at the studio? STRINGER: There will be many applications for 3D. Sony currently has TVs, Blu-ray players, PS3s and digital still cameras that offer 3D. And we’re working on some other 3D devices that we think consumers will like. You will see 3D become even more prevalent with the addition of 3D-capable computers, which we will introduce next year, and mobile displays. Michael Lynton, the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, recently said that when filmmakers begin planning a new film, they now ask, “3D, or not 3D? That is the question.” And more and more frequently, the answer is “yes.” So, clearly, 3D is having a significant impact on film and TV production. And there are very good reasons why. Half of our box-office receipts for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs a year ago were from 3D theaters, including IMAX. Eighty-one percent of Avatar’s box office came from 3D, including IMAX. Not every 3D film will reach Avatar’s phenomenal level of revenue, but, clearly, the hunger is there. The number of 3D films Hollywood is releasing will expand from 16 in 2009 to 27 this year, and at least 31 in 2011. And the number of 3D screens worldwide is growing—from 7,000 last year to 14,000 by the end of this year and 23,000 in 2012. In the short term, 3D content will be but one aspect of the range of programs and films we produce at Sony Pictures. As 3D distribution opportunities grow with digital 3D theaters, 3D TVs and other devices, the ratio of 3D to 2D content and

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also engaged in the joint development of other new and compelling Android-based products that will offer dazzling entertainment adventures. Sorry—I can tantalize you, but I can’t give you more specifics right now…for obvious reasons. WS: Sony was the first studio to

All fired up: Salt, with Angelina Jolie, was one of Sony Pictures’ box-office successes this year, setting itself up as a possible new franchise for the studio.

the rate of production will increase. Currently, Sony Pictures has a number of 3D movies in the pipeline, including the next Spider-Man and Men in Black films, as well as Resident Evil: Afterlife this fall and The Green Hornet and The Smurfs. We’ve begun testing some popular TV shows, such as Wheel of Fortune, in 3D.We are also well under way, in partnership with Discovery and IMAX, with the first dedicated 3D television channel that will debut in the U.S. next year. WS: Would 3D technology be

applied mostly to blockbuster franchises and animated features, or do you envision the enhancement of 3D technology in most movies? STRINGER: Not every movie will, or should, be made in 3D. The goal is to use 3D as another tool or method of storytelling—when and where it can immerse the viewer in a story. Hopefully, the days of using 3D as a gimmick to shock audiences— many of us remember being jolted by an arrow or axe flying towards the screen in the 1950s—are behind us. Sony Pictures has been a leader in the 3D revolution. Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation and Screen Gems have all produced films in 3D. Sony Pictures Releasing International has issued the studios’ own films in 3D, as well as others’. Sony Pictures’ visual effects and digital productions group, Imageworks, has worked in 3D longer than anyone else in Hollywood and

has turned out quality 3D films like Monster House and Open Season for Sony Pictures and Beowulf, G-Force and Alice in Wonderland for other studios. WS: Tell us about the joint-venture

channel with Discovery Communications and IMAX. STRINGER: The Sony-DiscoveryIMAX partnership brings together three bona-fide leaders in entertainment with expertise that complements the others extremely well. Collectively, we have an extraordinary collection of high-quality 3D content, technology expertise, and television distribution and operational strength.We’re very pleased to be working with Discovery and IMAX to deliver the highest-quality 3D content to viewers and establish long-term leadership in the 3D home marketplace. The 3D network will launch early next year in the U.S. with content from all three partners, as well as third-party acquisitions from leaders in 3D programming and production. The focus will be on genres that are most appealing and effective in 3D—including natural history, adventure, theatrical releases and IMAX movies. WS: Why is TV by Google an

appealing project? STRINGER: We had been discussing the concept of “Sony Internet TV” for some time—we were 10/10

calling it “Evolving TV.” The idea was to revolutionize TV viewing with new levels of connectivity and Internet integration, and evolve and enrich the experience through downloadable applications. The strategic alliance with Google helped us realize this concept faster than anyone else, by combining our hardware engineering, technology and design with Google’s opensource Android platform. It will be the first true Internet TV. For example, Sony Internet TV users will be able to simultaneously view content and access the Internet or new applications. Users can also seamlessly search TV programming, Internet content and websites. WS: Is TV by Google one part of

your strategy to focus on software, media and connectivity to reinvigorate Sony? What are the other parts of this strategy? STRINGER: Over the last several years, we’ve strengthened our software capability and added connectivity across many of our products. Sony Internet TV is part of our mid- to long-term TV strategy that significantly evolves and enhances the TV-viewing experience by providing consumers with increasingly rich, varied and vast content and services. Sony Internet TV is not intended to immediately increase our market share, but it will position us as leaders in the next chapter of the consumer TV experience.We are

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become involved in local-language productions around the world. Nonetheless, the studios have fallen behind companies like Endemol and FremantleMedia in the format and local-production business. Is the format business an important part of your television production business? STRINGER: Sony Pictures Television was the first studio involved in local-language scripted-format productions and is still the industry leader with shows like Married… with Children, which is a huge success in Russia, for example. We’ve produced close to 350 episodes of that series there. Companies like Endemol and Fremantle have been very competitive in the light entertainment/unscripted format business. So, Sony Pictures acquired 2waytraffic in order to build up its unscripted business, and the studio is currently producing shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and The Dating Game, as well as new formats like The Dr. Oz Show, in many countries around the world. The local-production business is an important part of our global strategy, so we have hired highly respected personnel and opened production businesses in new territories. The most recent was the establishment of Floresta in Brazil, headed by Elisabetta Zenatti. We are currently in production on a variety of local-language shows, scripted and unscripted, in Europe, Russia, Asia and Latin America, and are doing quite well. WS: As you work to reinvigorate

Sony, is the ownership of channels around the world still an important business to be in? STRINGER: The channels business is an important and thriving part of

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one on one Sony Pictures Entertainment. Sony Pictures Television currently operates 125 channel feeds in 140 countries that reach approximately 438 million households in 22 languages. We have also been rolling out our channels in HD around the world, most recently adding feeds in Poland, Spain, Portugal and Italy. From Sony Entertainment Television, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary in India this fall, to our recently launched channels in the Baltics—our first in the region—this business is growing, both in reach and profitability. In the U.S., we’re adding to our channels business with a new branded HD movie network and FEARnet, a horror/thriller destination, plus, of course, the 3D channel set to launch next year. WS: Some critics say Sony has been overtaken by Apple in the sense that the Walkman was replaced by the iPod and several other innovations. These devices made Apple the hot company Sony used to be. How do you respond to that criticism and what is being done to put the “cool factor” back into Sony? STRINGER: The Sony image is no longer based on a few iconic products. It is a giant multinational which creates a broad range of products— some are hot, some are cool, most are multi-sellers—and, so, innovation comes in many different places. Our 4K digital movie projector has become the industry’s front-line champion, as cinemas become digital. The Exmor R Handycam is the world’s best camcorder—it won the Nikkei Best Product Award in 2009. The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini mobile phone won the Red Dot international product design award. It’s the smartest and the coolest. Our panoramic Cyber-shot camera is just as cool. Our Sony 3D TVs were chosen as the best 3D TV in the market this year by the European Imaging and Sound Association. Everyone is now realizing the value of our Blu-ray technology, with its advanced bandwidth. We were the first to use a backlit LED

screen in televisions, which is now the standard in the industry. In an international consumer poll this spring, Sony ranked number two behind Google on the list of the world’s most reputable companies, as reported by Forbes magazine. I could go on, but I think you get the point! WS: How does the “make.believe”

marketing campaign help change consumers’ perception of Sony? STRINGER: Consumers are noticing that “make.believe” has begun to appear in the advertising, promotional materials, product packaging, retail outlets, online content and more, of the Sony companies. The make.believe message is intended to unify the voice of our brand. We want to communicate to consumers that all of Sony’s brands, products, services and content are connected and can enhance their lives in a tangible way. Internally, it’s helping to reignite the innovative spirit of our people and our products. Externally, we hope to inspire consumers to believe, as the tagline says, that anything they can imagine, they can make real…hopefully, with Sony’s help. We encourage them to embrace the make.believe spirit by using their own creativity and passion and interpreting the message for themselves. We like to think of make.believe as a rallying cry for creativity and imagination and a reaffirmation that, despite the world’s woes, there is a place for that in our lives. Millions of people around the world saw make.believe again and again during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa this summer. I thought there might have been divine intervention when the Sony make.believe banners came up just as Keisuke Honda scored the winning goal for Japan against Cameroon. Talk about imagining something and making it real! WS: How does Sony compete with

less expensive electronics from countries like China and Korea? How do you differentiate your product lines from those of other companies? 210

Buying time: A leading producer for cable TV, Sony Pictures Television recently made The Big C, starring Laura Linney, for Showtime. STRINGER: While the trend toward

commoditization has certainly grown in the past several years, the Sony brand still stands for exceptional quality and design, and there remains a huge market for that. Our focus continues to be providing exceptional entertainment experiences for consumers through extraordinary products, services and content that connect easily to each other. WS: You are the first non-Japanese

to take over a major Japanese company.What disadvantages and advantages have you experienced by being a foreigner? STRINGER: One might have thought that being an outsider would be a disadvantage, but, actually, that is not true. Certainly, there were challenges to be overcome on both sides to build trust, set priorities and goals, and agree on strategies. I think we dealt with all of that pretty well. Ironically, being an outsider has proven to be an advantage. It is sometimes easier to make changes because there are no preexisting loyalties. While there is a tremendous amount of passion at Sony, I was able to bring a necessary

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objectivity that is essential for change. The goal was to retain all of that passion while creating some new, more efficient and effective ways of operating. Hopefully, I have brought even more of a global perspective to the company, which is an increasingly critical component of running the business. I’m pleased that we have genuinely broken down most of the silos that existed five years ago. The Sony Group companies are working closely together, and I don’t need to constantly remind employees of the advantages of “Sony United” anymore. Our Blu-ray victory was probably the first meaningful external manifestation of our collective strength.That was a watershed event for us, literally and figuratively, because it demonstrated what could be accomplished when we pooled our expertise and determination. Our effort with 3D is an outgrowth of that Blu-ray success. WS: How do you balance your grueling travel schedule with your personal life? STRINGER: I’ll let you know when I achieve it!

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on the record ong before the word “franchise” became the goal of television and movie producers, Haim Saban had begun envisioning the world he could build around a TV property he had seen in Japan in 1987. Produced by Toei, the Japanese tokusatsu (live-action TV series) featured teenage heroes, each in a colorful spandex suit, on a mission to combat evil. Saban saw great potential in the series, but the many network executives he pitched it to did not—except for Margaret Loesch, then at the helm of the Fox Kids Network. She loved it and the rest is history. First airing as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in 1993, the series continued for 17 seasons, captivating the enthusiasm and imagination of children around the world. In the process, the franchise became one of the top-selling boys’ toy brands in the U.S. Saban, who had already made a name and a fortune for himself in the music-publishing business, creating and owning the rights to music for animated children’s series, founded Saban Entertainment, an international television, production, distribution and merchandising company, in 1988. Known as a consummate dealmaker, Saban merged his company with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Kids Network in 1995, thereby creating a fully integrated entertainment company that combined Saban Entertainment’s content and merchandising prowess with Fox’s extensive channel distribution. In 1997, the Saban-Fox partnership acquired Pat Robertson’s Family Channel, a cable network that reached 81 million homes in the U.S. The joint venture was restructured under the Fox Family Worldwide banner, which included the Fox Family

Channel, the Fox Kids Network, Saban Entertainment, and Fox Kids International Network, a publicly traded, Europeanbased company with cable and satellite networks reaching 53 countries in Europe and the Middle East. Together these assets offered viewers a wide range of programming—some 6,500 titles—and a vast global distribution platform reaching more than 250 million homes worldwide. Saban and Murdoch sold Fox Family Worldwide in October 2001 to The Walt Disney Company for a reported $5.2 billion. The deal, spearheaded by Saban, was reportedly the largest cash transaction conducted by a single individual in the history of Hollywood. Shortly after the deal was closed, Saban began to look beyond U.S. borders. He formed the Saban Capital Group (SCG), which set out to invest in a number of broadcasting entities. In 2002, SCG led a consortium of investors to acquire a controlling stake in the German broadcast group ProSiebenSat.1 Media. The stake was sold in 2007 to the privateequity firms KKR and Permira. In 2005, SCG teamed with Apax Partners and Arkin Communications to acquire a controlling stake in Bezeq The Israel Telecommunication Corp., as part of the government’s privatization of the company. The stake was then sold in April of this year. And in 2007, SCG teamed with a group of investors to acquire Univision Communications, which owns and operates the number one Spanish-language television network in the U.S. Saban is also extremely active in the philanthropic and political arenas. A staunch defender of Israel, he founded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in 2002. He has donated repeatedly to the Democratic National Convention (DNC), to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and to numerous charities as well. Now Saban is making a new foray into the media business with Saban Brands. The company is planning a global relaunch of Power Rangers, by refreshing the franchise for today’s generation of children. In this exclusive interview, Saban offers his vision of developing brands, investing in media assets and more.

Haim Saban

Saban Capital Group

WS: Nowadays, several major networks

around the world that showcase children’s programming, such as Super RTL or the block on TF1, require that distributors share merchandising revenues with them in order to air their programming. How does that change the dynamics of the business compared to when you first launched Power Rangers? SABAN: It’s a completely different world. When we first launched Power Rangers, we got paid top dollar in every single territory in the world. And we didn’t share in any back end with anybody, except for the original rights owner, which was Toei, of course. 10/10

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So today the dynamic is very different. I’m not in a position to share with you the kind of deals we will be making. But we will be creative and attempt to create structures that will be a win-win [situation] for the broadcasters and us. WS: What other brands are you looking to acquire? Will they only be children’s brands or are you looking at targeting other demographics? SABAN: No, it will not be only children’s. We are happy to announce the acquisition of Paul Frank Industries. It’s a lifestyle company with a design portfolio of more than 150 characters. One of the first initia-

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on the record tives will be to take the character Julius [a monkey seen on T-shirts and other items] and the others into a variety of multimedia platforms. It is our hope that we will be able to announce more details at MIPCOM. So we are looking at lifestyle brands, apparel brands, kids’ brands and consumer-product brands like Polaroid. Somebody bought Polaroid. Had we been in that business at the time (we were not), we would have bid for Polaroid, because we think there are a lot of things we can do with Polaroid. The world is filled with more and more information, and brands are the only way to stand out and give the consumer a certain feeling of comfort that he is going to get his money’s worth. WS: Looking at Univision, you had been seeking retransmission fees from cable and satellite operators. How successful have you been in that process? SABAN: We were very successful to create a win-win situation for us and for our cable partners. We have made deals with all of the cable and satellite and phone operators—Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-Verse. I think they are very happy with the results. As a matter of fact, I was talking to some Time Warner people, and they were very complimentary about the way our team handled the negotiation with them. We didn’t have to yank Univision’s signal anywhere. The negotiation was not contentious with anybody, because we came up with a formula that we believe has created value for our cable-operator partners. WS: In prime time, Univision has

been dependent on two main sources of programming,Venevision and Televisa. Univision has now set up its own studio. What kind of original programming will Univision be producing? SABAN: First of all, our contracts with Venevision and Televisa run until the end of 2017, so it’s seven years away. There is no doubt that

Ready for action: Saban Brands has taken back the rights to the hit Power Rangers franchise, inking a deal for a new season to be produced for Nickelodeon and Nicktoons in 2011 and distributed worldwide by MarVista Entertainment.

Televisa produces leading programs that we air in prime time. Venevision has now made a conscious decision to also start producing programs that would be of prime-time quality, and we are very grateful for that. Univision Studios will be complementing that programming with shows that we produce ourselves. WS: Do you have plans in the future to set up a distribution division for the programming that Univision will be producing? SABAN: Inevitably it’s going to happen, but everything in due course.

relationship with the Azcárraga group and the Cisneros Group [the parent company of Venevision].We are partners and here they are very valued number one and number two suppliers. On a personal level, the whole Televisa team and Venevision team work very well with the Univision team. So it’s a pretty harmonious relationship today. It is true that when we bought the company we inherited a lawsuit that wasn’t of our making or theirs. It was a dispute between Televisa and the prior owners. The lawsuit was settled about a year and a half ago and today the relationship is harmonious.

WS: What is your relationship

with Emilio Azcárraga, the president and CEO of Grupo Televisa, and Gustavo Cisneros, the chairman and CEO of the Cisneros Group of Companies? SABAN: I know them personally and we have a cordial and friendly 326

WS: Just as you and your investment partners sold the stake you owned in the German broadcast group ProSiebenSat.1 Media and made a profit from it, is Univision at a point now that it would make more sense to sell it than to keep it?

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SABAN: No. WS: You sold your stakes in

ProSiebenSat.1 and in Keshet Broadcasting in Israel. Are you more interested in short-term strategic investments rather than building a media conglomerate? SABAN: Saban Capital Group is an investment entity. Even though we are active in private equity, we are not a classic private equity because we don’t have LPs (limited partners). We work with our own money. We have been very blessed because all of our investments in private equity today have been extremely profitable. I wouldn’t like to set up a rule that says we would always sell or we would never sell. We act in an opportunistic manner. With ProSiebenSat.1, somebody stepped up and made us an offer that gave our partners and us a significant profit and we decided to do it and

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on the record go forward and sell it. If someone came in and wanted to buy Univision today, we wouldn’t sell it. There are no preset rules that say that once we are at two times or three times the investment, we sell. That is not the case at all. Every investment stands on its own merit and we’ll decide on a case-by-case basis. WS: So if an opportunity arose to acquire a broadcast channel or a group in the U.S. or internationally, might that interest you? SABAN: We’ve always been interested in ITV and we toyed with that idea a couple of times. We went to their board with a couple of ideas over the last couple of years, but there is a valuation gap there that we couldn’t make work. The answer is we will be opportunistic, be it broadcast, cable, satellite or telecom. We are in the telecommunications investment business and we will be opportunistic. WS: Tell us about Tiger Gate, the

joint venture with Lionsgate in Asia. SABAN: I have to admit that I am

peripherally aware of that venture. It is more Adam Chesnoff [Saban Capital Group’s president and COO] who put it together, but the fundamentals are very simple. It’s an area we understand. Lionsgate as content suppliers are great partners, and we also happen to have a great personal relationship with [co-chairman and CEO] Jon Feltheimer and his team. Asia is a fastgrowing market. So when you put all these elements together, when this opportunity presented itself to us we said yes, that is our sweet spot, if you will. And all the stars aligned and we went forward. WS: You have had a core group

of very loyal executives working with you for many years. How have you nurtured that kind of teamwork and loyalty? SABAN: A) nobody calls me Mr. Saban; everybody calls me Haim. B) I allow them to abuse me—it’s

true, I’m not kidding. C) Whenever a decision is made, I go last. Everyone has an opportunity to take pride of ownership in whatever decisions are made in this place. And D) I believe I pay them handsomely. [Laughs] So when you put it all together, there is no reason for me to replace them or for them to go anywhere else. WS: You pay them handsomely

and you allow them to abuse you? SABAN: [Laughs] Well, I’m trying to give them all the pleasures I can so they really want to continue staying. WS: Another person I’m interviewing for this issue is Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Endemol. I know the two of you are very close. SABAN: Correct. Ynon worked for me for many years. He is an exceptionally talented individual. And I believe that Endemol is super lucky to have him.

I’m having difficulty understanding that, because I have checked every which way possible as to whether, when I go on to my next adventure, meaning when I die, I can take my money with me, and I found out that I can’t! There is no way that’s going to happen! I don’t want to leave my kids too much money because I don’t want them to get confused. I want them to be non-confused! So what is the purpose of not giving? And giving enough is different for different people. For some people a million dollars is enough and for others a billion is not enough, so “enough” is a relative word. But there’s always room to give if you have it in your heart to give and if your mind tells you this is simply the

WS: And you are involved in many philanthropic activities, aren’t you? SABAN: We are involved with the Saban Free Clinic, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, among others. WS: On a personal note, when my

son was a little boy, he adored the Power Rangers, especially the Blue Ranger. Today he is a researcher at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, right next door to the Brookings Institution, and he’d like to change the world, so I wonder, maybe it was Power Rangers that planted the seed! SABAN: It was, it was! I’m going to quote you! It was!

Minority report: The flagship newscast Noticiero Univision is a key part of the schedule for the leading U.S. Hispanic broadcaster, which was acquired by Saban Capital Group and a consortium of investors in 2007.

WS: You set up the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Can effective and successful businesspeople play a role in furthering relations between nations? SABAN: Governments are the decision makers at the end of the day. However, I think that people who are interested in what goes on in this world that we live in—and not everybody that has money is—can make a difference. You see people like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, they are obviously very interested in what’s going on in the world, and they are putting their money where their mouth is. I think that whether it be at the policy level or at the philanthropic level, people who have been blessed with success and have the financial wherewithal and want to make a commitment to give back to the community absolutely can make a difference at all the levels that I mentioned. Unfortunately, there are people who don’t give in relationship to their wealth, and frankly 328

right thing to do. And that’s how my wife and I think about it.

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in conversation imon Cowell has become a household name because of his honest and often bruising remarks on the talent-competition shows American Idol and The X Factor. What is less known among the general public is his indisputed ability as an entrepreneur and a long career during which he has honed his lasersharp eye on spotting talent and identifying opportunities in the music and television businesses. He got his first job in the music business at EMI Publishing in London. As his career progressed, he became an A&R (artist & repertoire) executive and went on to found several record labels. In 2001, he was asked to be a judge on a singing competition show in Britain called Pop Idol. American Idol launched the following year and Cowell’s position as one of the best-known TV personalities on the planet was secured.

Simon Cowell

But being a judge is only part of his transatlantic career. In 2002, he founded Syco with Sony Music Entertainment and is responsible for some of the biggest acts in the last decade, including Leona Lewis, Westlife and Il Divo. He is also the entrepreneurial force behind the Susan Boyle phenomenon. The somewhat frumpy-looking middle-aged Scottish woman first appeared on Britain’s Got Talent in April 2009. Her video went viral on YouTube and she became an overnight sensation. In November 2009, Cowell’s record label released Boyle’s CD I Dreamed a Dream and it became one of the fastest-selling female artist debut albums in music history. This is a perfect example of Cowell’s business acumen: create a show that introduces new talent, spot the best, release a CD with them, then use television, music and live concerts to synergistically promote the talent and help drive CD sales. And speaking of sales, over the last 15 years, Cowell’s artists have achieved sales of more than 150 million albums with more than 100 number one records. Cowell has been making headlines all year, since it was announced that he will not be returning as a judge on American Idol for its tenth season. Instead, he is working on a U.S. version of The X Factor, which will be premiering on FOX in 2011. He’s tight-lipped at the moment about his plans for the show but promises it will be better than any other show he’s ever done. That’s his mantra—always setting the bar higher. And it’s always served him and his business partners very well. In fact, Tony Cohen, the CEO of FremantleMedia—the company which co-produces The X Factor (in the U.K. and soon the U.S.), Britain’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent (with Syco) and American Idol (with 19), as well as sells the finished versions and licenses and produces the formats of these shows around the world—has this to say about Cowell, “He is, in my mind, an unprecedented phenomenon. I can’t remember, in all my years in television, somebody who has had that degree of creative and commercial success both in the U.S. and the U.K. We’ve had a tremendous partnership with him, one based on our respect for his extraordinary talent, and on his appreciation for the talent and quality we bring to the productions that we do with him and our ability to build global brands around his shows. He always challenges himself to do better creatively and commercially. He is relentless on himself and he challenges us, too. It’s why we find him such a real inspiration.”

WS: What can you tell us about the U.S. version of The X Factor, which will premiere next year on FOX? COWELL: Not much. Number one because I don’t think you should advertise what you are going to do in advance because it’s a teensy-weensy bit competitive out there at the moment. But secondly, genuinely, we have to make this up partly on a month-by-month basis because of how things change. But look, the most important thing is that I have got to assemble a team of people here, which sets out on a mission statement. And the mission statement is, I will find and make a bigger star than any other show has done before. And if I don’t believe that is possible, I won’t do it. 10/10

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in conversation The X Factor The X Factor, the Sycoowned format, has been produced or licensed by FremantleMedia in 20 territories, including Australia, Belgium, Colombia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the U.K. It will launch in the U.S. in 2011, with more countries to follow. In the U.K., The X Factor has consistently ranked as one of the top-rated entertainment shows in the country since it first aired, in 2004. The show’s 2010 launch was its best ever, with 11.3 million viewers tuning in to watch the first episode of series seven. In 2009, series six of The X Factor peaked with an audience of 16.3 million viewers, making it the U.K.’s number two program of the year (behind Britain’s Got Talent). Meanwhile, the behind-thescenes show The Xtra Factor is the U.K.’s number one multichannel program of 2009. FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME) is launching a multiterritory console game based on the hit talent show. With versions for the Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation3, the game will be available from the fourth quarter of 2010 in multiple languages in numerous European territories where the show is made. In Denmark, The X Factor has been the highest-rated show for the past three years and is the most successful local adaptation of the format. The format is also the number one entertainment show for broadcasters in countries such as France, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands, where The X Factor’s third series has proved its most successful yet.

Judges’ table: A huge hit in the U.K. on ITV, The X Factor has been adapted in markets as diverse as Australia, Colombia, Germany, Spain, Turkey and, as of January 2011, the U.S., where the popular talent competition will air on FOX. WS: That’s quite ambitious, given what you have already accomplished. COWELL: You’ve got to set your sights high, and I’ve always said, you can die trying! The alternative to that is to say, I’d like to find somebody who is not as successful! I just can’t work like that—that would be just crazy! WS: The Internet brought the music industry to its

knees. How do you see the state of the music industry today? COWELL: I think essentially you’ve got to look at what’s happening in a positive rather than a negative way. My first thought would be that a record label can’t be a record label in the old-fashioned sense anymore. A record label has to be involved in different aspects of an artist’s earnings, otherwise it’s not going to work. The good news is the fact that you’ve got this global promotion available at the touch of a button [through the Internet]. Years ago, it used to take months or years to get people around the world to know your artist, but as we’ve shown with Susan Boyle, within a week, 150 million people saw our artist. That is pretty staggering, and if you can’t use it to your advantage, you are an idiot! 374

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WS: You have a 360-degree approach to establishing and promoting your artists, and Susan Boyle is a perfect example: you have the TV shows, you’re able to release the CDs and you have concerts. Tell us how you secure exposure in today’s really crowded media landscape. COWELL: What I have to do is what we ask our contestants to do—you’ve got to stand out from the crowd. And it’s hard because you are fighting through an awful lot of competition. But I’ve always believed this, whether it was 20 years ago or yesterday, if it’s good and the quality is good, it will find its way to the top naturally.You don’t have to worry that much and freak out about marketing and promotion. I’ve never blamed a flop record or a flop TV show on the fact that it wasn’t promoted properly. It came down to the fact that it was rubbish. WS: What projects are in the works at Syco Television? COWELL: We have a team that has spent months and

months and months working on these shows. It’s a great development department. It’s a combination of experienced and young people. What tends to happen is that they will start with five, six or seven viable ideas and then we will greenlight the ones we think should go into production, and at the moment we just green-

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lit three ideas. I’ve got to decide which network we think may like them, et cetera, et cetera, but I’m happy with them. WS: Are you also producing films? COWELL: No, we’ve never made a movie. We’ve been

approached by lots of people to make movies. If we are going to go into the movie business we have to do it in exactly the same way as we did the TV business, which is we’ve got to find a great partner and they’ve got to teach us, ’cause I haven’t got a clue how to make a movie. WS: Tell us about your philanthropic work. How did it

come about and how do you find time for it? You have so much on your plate already. COWELL: It’s a good question. I didn’t work out a plan when I started to make some money. Obviously I got approached by a lot of people who needed help. In the end I put it down to two main [causes], kids’ charities and animal charities, which I care a lot about.You can’t help everybody; you just have to realize that, so I tend to get involved with charities that obviously need help. Apart from helping out financially, I try to do things where I can help get more money and draw more attention [to the cause] with the time I have available, and I like doing it.

I’ve got to tell you, if you get involved in charity, what it does to you as a person—if you go down to rescue shelters to see some of the animals, or you go down to the hospices where we do some work, and you meet kids who are in a pretty bad way, but incredibly fun to be with—it’s a leveler. WS: You will be presented the Founders Award at the International Emmy Awards Gala in November. What meaning does this award have for you and what does it say about your body of work? COWELL: It may sound like a bit of a cliché, but it is genuinely true that I am accepting this award on behalf of the producers I have worked with over the years. Because if anybody thinks this is down to me, they are sorely mistaken! [Laughs] I work with a ton of talented people who work longer hours than I do, and the award will go to them. It’s like the whole team is getting the award, that’s how I look at it. WS: You must be on planes all the time. What do you do to relax? COWELL: I stopped with all the traveling because I think that is a killer. Sitting in a plane all the time is

Aiming high: FremantleMedia and Syco co-own the Got Talent format, which originated on NBC in the U.S. before rolling out to the U.K. (on ITV), among a host of other territories. 10/10

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Got Talent Got Talent, a format co-owned by FremantleMedia and Syco, has broken audience records in multiple territories worldwide. The format has been produced in 38 territories to date, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the U.S. and is one of the world’s fastest-selling formats this year. Britain’s Got Talent launched on June 9, 2007, and was the U.K.’s highest-rated new entertainment program that year, attracting a peak audience of 11.6 million viewers. In 2009, it attained a peak audience of 18.3 million viewers, ranking as the U.K.’s number one entertainment program of the last decade and the highest-rated show of the year. The show returned to ITV1 in April 2010 and is once again the U.K.’s highest-rated entertainment show. America’s Got Talent has been the highest-rated entertainment series on NBC for the last three seasons. Series five is NBC’s highest-rated series of 2010 to date, winning weekly audiences of more than 11.3 million viewers. America’s Got Talent is now seen in 110 countries. The Got Talent brand has successfully launched onto social-networking, console, mobile and online platforms. The very first iPhone app for Britain’s Got Talent was a huge success, jumping to the top of the app charts within days of its launch and remaining there throughout the broadcast. The app was downloaded by more than half a million viewers. Got Talent has attracted new viewers for each season in countries such as Denmark, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.

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in conversation Idols Idols, co-owned by FremantleMedia and 19 Entertainment, is one of the most successful entertainment formats ever launched. It first aired in the U.K. as Pop Idol in 2001, and since then more than 156 series have aired in 43 territories, attracting upwards of a staggering 5 billion votes worldwide. Next year marks the tenth anniversary of the global phenomenon that is Idols. American Idol has been the number one series in the U.S. every year for the past five years. In 2010, series nine of American Idol remained the most successful series on U.S. television, winning audiences of up to 30 million viewers. Among adults 18 to 49, the show out-performed FOX’s prime-time average by over 200 percent. American Idol is now seen in 140 countries, airing throughout major territories around the world as well as in Polynesia, Slovenia, Brunei and Trinidad. The American Idol Experience at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida continues to be one of the leading attractions in the theme park following its launch last year. The attraction is the first in the world based on the award-winning show. Year after year, Idols is a ratings hit around the world. In its nine-year history, it has been the number one entertainment program for broadcasters in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Australia, Norway, Singapore and Croatia, among others, and it is the number one entertainment show for RTL in Germany this year, where it airs with the local title Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar!

Toon up: Cowell has been with American Idol since its inception, helping to turn it into a pop-culture phenomenon referred to in several other television series—including sister FOX show Family Guy.

the most appalling experience on earth. I hate it. So I tend not to do it too much. I stay in one place and I will work till five or six in the morning if I need to, probably five days out of seven days, making sure that I am in contact with London and America. And I do most of my work from about 1:30 a.m to 2 a.m. I like it there.

it to be the best, and I’ve always had that attitude. I don’t do anything to get the silver or the bronze medal. I find that depressing. So I would only ever do something new if I knew I could do better than who’s doing it now. That’s why I enjoy it—that’s why I like that challenge.

WS: Fewer distractions at that time? COWELL: Fewer distractions and I enjoy what

I do. I say to all of the people who work with me now that if you don’t want to do this, if you don’t think you can make it better than last year, just shelve it, leave, do something else. Most people work at what they like doing. WS: Is there anything you’d like to do that you

haven’t had the chance to do yet? COWELL: I’m asked that question—is there

anything I’d like to do. I don’t ever want to make a fool of myself, and that goes back to the point about movies. I’ve seen so many people screw up in an area because they think it’s easy. It’s not easy. If I do something I want 376

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world’s end

IN THE STARS

Almost every national constitution forbids the establishment of an official state religion. But this secular bent doesn’t stop people from looking to the heavens for answers to life’s most troublesome questions: Will I succeed? Will I find love? Will Lady Gaga try to dress me? Every day, papers and magazines

Lady Gaga

Dick Wolf

Sofia Vergara

Angelina Jolie

Dick Wolf

Cher

Global distinction: Creator of Law & Order. Sign: Sagittarius (b. December 20, 1946) Significant date: September 10, 2010 Noteworthy activity: The producer’s ex-wife files a

Global distinction: Music and fashion icon. Sign: Taurus (b. May 20, 1946) Significant date: September 12, 2010 Noteworthy activity: The 64-year-old singer appears

at the MTV Video Music Awards in a barely-there bodysuit. On stage to present Lady Gaga with the Video of the Year Award, the superstar’s outfit very closely resembles the sparkly getup she dawned in the If I Could Turn Back Time music video from 1989. Horoscope: “You are full of youth and liveliness. Your vibrancy can be seen from miles away.You do not need to overdo it to get attention, because it should just come naturally for a Taurean.” (foreverhoroscopes.com)

sight occasionally prove prophetic.

lawsuit against her former business managers, who she claims hid hundreds of millions of dollars during her divorce settlement. She alleges that they deceived her by not including Law & Order’s future earnings in the settlement. Many estimate the show to be worth some $550 million. Horoscope: “Sagittarius is very passionate about justice and they are also natural teachers. However, you must be mindful not to let these ideas of self-righteousness cloud your personal judgment.” (freehoroscopesastrology.com)

But rather than poring over charts

Wayne Rooney

worldwide print horoscopes—projections for people born in a specific month, based on the positions of the stars and planets. While many people rely on these daily, weekly or monthly messages for guidance in their lives, some readers skip over them entirely. The editors of WS recognize that these little pearls of random fore-

of the zodiac to predict world events, our staff prefers to use past horoscopes in an attempt to legitimate the science. As you can see here, had some of these media figures remembered to consult their horoscopes on significant days, they could have avoided

Global distinction: Manchester United football star. Sign: Scorpio (b. October 24, 1985) Significant date: September 13, 2010 Noteworthy activity: Amid a public scandal in which

the footballer is caught cheating on his pregnant wife, Rooney is dumped by his £600,000-a-year sponsor, Coca-Cola.The brand says that it is “horrified and bewildered” by allegations that Rooney slept with a prostitute. Horoscope: “Once a Scorpio finds true love they can be the most faithful [and] dedicated of all partners.This sign does love to play the field, however, when it comes to romance and flirting.” (lovefatedestiny.com)

a few surprises.

Sofia Vergara Global distinction: Buxom Colombian-born actress. Sign: Cancer (b. July 10, 1972) Significant date: September 12, 2010 Noteworthy activity: The Modern Family star tells Self

magazine she is “grateful” for her size 34DD chest. Though the Latin stunner says that she did not always appreciate her figure, she now admits: “Honestly, they’ve helped me a lot in my career.” Horoscope: “Your confidence and courage will bring you professional success. Your earnings will increase and your financial condition will improve. Do not take this for granted and blow this on things of comfort.” (cafejyotish.com) 552

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Angelina Jolie Global distinction: Celebrity megastar. Sign: Gemini (b. June 4, 1975) Significant date: September 8, 2010 Noteworthy activity: Often touted as the world’s

“most beautiful woman,” Jolie claims she is wildly unpopular. During a satellite interview with CNN, the mom of six reveals that life can get pretty lonely when her role as the UN’s Goodwill Ambassador forces her to be away. “I don’t have a lot of friends I talk to,” she admits. Horoscope: “Geminian’s restless nature leads them to travel by road, rail and air, making life chaotic. Embrace this, and those around you will too.” (findyourfate.com)

Lady Gaga Global distinction: Pop-music princess. Sign: Aries (b. March 28, 1986) Significant date: September 12, 2010 Noteworthy activity: The musician, known for her

over-the-top fashion, attends the MTV Video Music Awards in a dress and shoes made 100 percent of meat. A representative for PETA says after time spent under the TV lights, the dress would “smell like the rotting flesh that it is and likely be crawling [with] maggots.” Horoscope: “Aries people have a tendency to leap before looking and to take risks that shock more cautious types. This is a very physically courageous sign, so it is not surprising that many Aries people gravitate toward risky professions. Make sure to only leap within safe boundaries.” (astrological-sun-signs.suite101.com)

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