B enjamin (Ben) Pyne is the 49-year-old New York City and Burbank, Californiabased president of Global Distribution for Disney Media Networks, the new “matrix” that rose from the “ashes” of the old Buena Vista. The latter brand was retired in 2007, just about the time that Pyne took over. Considering Pyne’s varied responsibilities, one might picture him sitting behind a console, pushing a multitude of buttons. Another apt metaphor is that of him playing the divisions of his group like the strings of his guitar (of which he’s an accomplished player) in order to produce harmonious results. But, before touching on any subject with Pyne, one first has to understand the Benjamin’s Buttons. Disneys Global Boss Hit the Right Keys (Continued on Page 60) (Continued on Page 48) W IN Television is a privately owned regional television network that reaches over 5.2 million viewers across six states of Australia and the nation’s capital. The privately owned company has grown significantly since Bruce Gordon purchased a controlling interest in Television Wollongong Transmission Ltd (WIN4) in 1979, known today as WIN Television. TheWINNetwork reaches42percentof Australia’s 8.5 million homes and has over 1400 employees. Broadcasting throughout 27 markets, including its related companies Channel Nine in Adelaide and Perth, WIN’s transmission spans the largest geographical area in the world. Today, WIN Corp. includes business operations in TV and radio broadcasting, pay-TV, film andTV production. WIN was the first regional broadcaster to transmit high definition digital services, 12 months ahead of government regulatory requirements, in Wollongong, Canberra, Ballarat, Tasmania, Mildura and the Southern Queensland market. WIN Television is also a founding member of Freeview Australia, which was formed by Australia’s free-to-view TV broadcasters to assist in the promotion of digital television in Australia, and to enable access to the very best quality freeto-view digital programming. WIN TV’s 30th Anniversary Salute Forecasting is Hollywood’s “Ultimates” Game BY DOM SERAFINI F or the purpose of this story, “Ultimates” are not characters in a Marvel comic, but rather a marvel of financial engineering adopted by Hollywood’s account executives to figure out how much revenue will be generated by each movie title or TV series. Ultimates are updated monthly by the studios’ financial people with fresh data from the sales, (Continued on Page 44) (Continued on Page 56) V ideoAgeconducted a no holds barred, 360-degree interview with the 40-year old Pier Silvio Berlusconi, vice-chairman of Italy’s Mediaset (chairman is Fedele Confalonieri, CEO is Giuliano Adreani) and son of Italy’s prime minister, Silvio. This is a critical moment for Mediaset, and for the Italian television industry in general: The transition to digital terrestrial television, competition with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia (both in terms of premium TV channels and the development of a new satellite TV platform), the acquisition of Endemol, the creation of new production companies and the goal of bringing daytime drama production costs down from the current 70,000 euro (U.S. $100,000) per hour to a more manageable level of 15,000 euro (on par with those of Argentina, which manages to sell its low-cost shows Endemol, Italy’s TV Found a Big Brother In Pier Silvio Berlusconi Mediaset’s Pier Silvio Berlusconi ® THEBUSINESS JOURNALOF FILM,BROADCASTING,BROADBAND,PRODUCTION,DISTRIBUTION October2009VOL.29NO.6$9.75 www.videoage.org In This Issue: Food Nets Fall Season MIPCOM ‘09 Economic Blues VIDEOAGE INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2009 A fter the announcement of recordsetting U.S. summer box office intakes, come the European BO results, setting their own record for admissions in the first half of 2009, at par with 2006. It seems that the bad economy is proving a boon for the entertainment industry. The presence of so many film and TV markets during the fall period is also strengthening the business among those smaller companies fortunate to have good product. Unfortunately, like with every economic crisis, and as MIPCOM has well documented, weaker companies tend to be negatively affected themost. In effect, there is a buoyant attitude among the fortunate companies towards No Problems at the American Film Market Markets Heavily Invested In Latin American TV Biz (Continued onPage 18) (Continued onPage 18) IPTV Pay Vs. Free: The Battle of The Titans (Continued onPage 16) (Continued onPage 14) Business Promised at Asia TV Forum Afewmonths before the start of AsiaTV Forum (ATF) in Singapore (December 2-4), VideoAge askedATF’sGeneralManagerMichelle Lim for a preview ofwhat the industry should expect before crossing the Pacific. Held at Singapore’s Suntec Convention Centre, ATF brings together international TV broadcasters andnewmedia contentproviders to serviceprogramT he discussion panel titled “PayTV vs. Online Video: How Are Pay-TV ServicesDealingwith the Threat fromWebVideo Services” offered a broad range of information, as well as a broad divide between executives. IPTVmonetization proved to be the bone of contention. The first executive to speak was Richard Halton, IPTV program director at the newly developed Project Canvas, a subsidiary of theU.K.’sBBC. ProjectCanvaswas established as away of linking three industries—manufacturers of STB technology, ISP and content providers.The goal is “democratizing access to the living room.”Halton claimed the BBC has no profitmotive, and is simply gathering a group of companies trying tomake it easier for them to get their content out, as this seems to be the key to linear channels’ survival. StephenNuttall, commercial director for BSkyB, also of the U.K., seemed extremely unsettled by the Project Canvas proposal. At the moment, BSkyB is primarily a pay-TV content Market is Fine As Is ATerritoryWorthUS$1.5Billion A t VideoAge’s traditional MIPCOM breakfast, three market organizations heavily invested in LatinAmerica joined us to assess the new nature of the Latin American TV market. Representing NATPE was president Rick Feldman; from BrasilTV Forum was AndréMermelstein and fromDISCOP, Patrick Jucaud. All three are pictured below with VideoAge’s Dom Serafini. There is little doubt that Latin America is growing in importance as a territory,not only forU.S. and international programming, but formarket organizers aswell. Unofficial estimates value the LatinAmerican programmarket at $1.5 billion annually and it representsbetween eight and 10percent ofHollywood’s total annual sales. In addition to traditional FTA and pay-TV, telecoms are now THEBUSINESS JOURNALOF FILM,BROADCASTING,BROADBAND,PRODUCTION,DISTRIBUTION October2009VOL.29NO.6$9.75 ® www.videoage.org MIPCOMDAY4 AFM PRODUCT Silencing Speech SpaghettiWestern (Continued onPage 4) (Continued onPage 4) Ellender on FME’s OneTrack Mind Quite a bit of the focus this year at MIPCOM is on newways tomonetize content and reach the maximum amount of viewers/consumers, and so it’s important to take a look at one of the companies that seems to have a firm grasp on themeasures necessary to successfully expand in themodern industry landscape. FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), with branches of local production across the globe, seems to be on the right track. What’s impressive about FME is not just the size and scale of the operation, although that alone would be cause for envy in almost any other company.What really catches the attention is the knack formaking a profit, even in these terrible economic times. David Ellender, CEO of FME, the London-based RTL-owned company, A Symbiotic Sportel-Com Are sport-TV companies attending SPORTEL because they’re already on theCoted’Azur forMIPCOMor vice versa?WillSPORTEL’s20th anniversary celebration be a symbiotic boost for bothmarkets? Last year, some 1,000 companies and almost 2,500 attendees from more than 80 countries came to SPORTELMonaco. This is a clear indication that sports is indeed abigTVbusiness and a specialized sports TV market is a great attraction. However, even though large companies, such asWWE andRaiTrade attend both events, other companies with limited sports programs tend to choose one. According to Marielle Zuccarelli, Senior Vice President of Sales for GRB (Continued onPage 6) T he overriding theme of this year’s MIPCOM is “rethinking.” Production, technology,methods ofmonetizing content… youname it,TV executives are told to rethink it.Today features talks on new sources of production INSIDE My2¢: L.A.SCREENINGS STUDIOHAMBURG’SMUSIC You Think You Know But You Have No Idea Birds & Biz at MIPJunior At thisMIPJunior, there was a substantial connection between children’s programming and licensing. On Saturday, for instance, there was a seminar called “The Licensing Leap,” which focused on the creation and development of licensing strategies based on successful TV properties. Similarly, yesterday, there was the “Online Gaming andNewDigitalRevenue Streams” panel duringwhich industry expertsweighed in on promising new business models and the connections between television and the onlineworld. This year also boastsMIPJunior’s sixth edition of its “Licensing Challenge,” a pitching competitionhonoring thosekids TV properties with the most licensing funding, new initiatives and incentives, the impact of online gaming on the television sphere, andmore. Laurine Garaude, acting director of the TV division of Reed MIDEM, MIPCOM’s organizer said, “During such challenging economic times and coupledwith aperiodof rapidmigration to online viewing, we see ‘Rethinking your Business’ as an immediate call to action to re-examine production funding and distributionmonetisationmodels.” Basically, the underlining message of this year is that “you don’t know all you should,” and to drive the message home there are over 45 sessions, keynotes, screenings and matchmaking (Continued onPage 6) “You need to rethink your business” WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG ® OCTOBER5,2009 DAY • 1 MONDAY The guys need to see a little BLOOD ON THE DECK . “ ” LINDAGREENLAW Captainof theSeaHawk (Continued inside) (Continued inside) Money Talk at Funding Seminar At the moment, 25 countries have governments offering location incentives to attract foreign productions. Among them are Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Jamaica, theU.S. andU.K.,with similar situations pending in Norway and Kenya.Yesterday, JaneCorden,managing director of Moneypenny Services Pay Ltd., moderated the panel on “New Funding for Producers from Around the World:TheLatest Incentives.” Canada, represented on the panel by Karen Thorne-Stone of the Media Development Agency of Ontario, has been offeringproduction incentives since the 1990s. Thorne-Stone commented thatwhile theyhaveprimarily focusedon production in the past, in coming months theCanadiangovernmentwillbe sanctioning co-production funding even Gaming Is Big Biz According to Fred Hasson, executive director of Redbedlam.com, more than 50 percent of theworld’s population plays games, up dramatically from 20 percent in 2000. And, while consoles like the PS3 and Xbox still maintain a predominantly male user base, Wii, NintendoDS and iPhones boast relatively small gender gaps.The gaming industry declared an estimated $40 billion in worldwide revenue in 2008. What this means in terms of its effect on the television sector remains to be seen, but the overall conclusion is that people in this business should be paying attention. These findings were presented yesterday at theGamingRevolution seminar. Simon Nelson, who is in charge of Arun of success like the oneDisney has enjoyed for years now has its origins inmany strengths, not just one. Ben Pyne, president, Global Distribution, Disney Media Networks, outlined a few of those strengths at yesINSIDE HOW-TOBOOK CELSION RAINEWCO MY2CENTS: INTEGRATION FlashForwardWorldwide New Series Sold to 100 Countries E! Calling on Sellers A t Comcast, sr vp of International Networks GraciaWaverly is actively looking for acquisitions in the lifestylegenre from international sellers to complement original programming currently on the international version ofThe StyleNetwork. Reached at the Comcast booth, Waverly (pictured) said that forE!, they’re mostly looking at reality series and for The StyleNetwork, they’re interested in lifestyle programs. Waverly is responsible for theprogramming, on-air, marketing and operations for E! Entertainment Television’s seven international networks and the Style Network, which she recently launched terday’s press lunch. One of these strategies, as made evidentby severalofDisney’snewhit shows such as FlashForward andHappyTown, is “a focus on great storytelling,” which Pyne claimed, “unites audiences all over theworld.”At the luncheon, Pyne (pictured at left) was flanked by Happy Town’s producer Josh Applebaum and FlashForward’s producer Jessika Barkawski, the latter of which is at work on the 10th episode of the initialU.S. network order of 13. Another important factor is the delivery and support of that content, and Pynewas clearly thrilled to announce the sale of FlashForward to over 100 territo- (Continued inside) (Continued inside) WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG ® OCTOBER 6, 2009 DAY • 2 TUESDAY FASHION COLLECTION (Continued inside) (Continued inside) Tony Cohen Rules MIPCOM S o far,MIPCOM’s speaking circuithas been a busy one forFremantleMedia’s CEO,TonyCohen.Hismessage has been clear— a lot of change is happening, and if handled properly, it’s a good thing.Hehas alsonoted that some things are not changing in the ways thatmany had predicted. In regard to the latterpoint, ithasbeen found that terrestrial television audiences are actually on the rise. Cohen began MIPCOM at the Fremantle Press Breakfast, citing an increase in average European daily viewing of 14 minutes per day, and a 30-minute increase over the same period in theU.S. since 2000, plus staggering audiences for hit shows like MasterChef, of which one episode pulled in eighteen percent of the Australian population; The Farmer Wants aWife,which, on average, attracts Direct Sales With Digital Arecent report revealed that over 40 percent of young adult households in the U.S. view Internet video on their television sets at least once amonth, and it predicted that by 2013, revenue from web-to-TV streaming will grow to $2.9 billion. This raises the question of whetherwe are heading for awhole new world in which television producers becomemore likemovie producers,making content for sale directly to the public, rather than to a middleman, such as a broadcaster who then sells it to public directly in the form of Pay-TV, or indirectly via an advertiser. One of the key problems with selling content directly to the public has been identified by Jonathan Ford, executive T he importance of MIPCOM to Hollywood majors as a venue for selling to Latin America is difficult to gauge.They allhave at least one executive listed as having responsibility for sales to the region, but none, apart from INSIDE LATINAMERICANTV FARE THEHOROWITZFILES MY2CENTS: LEADERS Latins Growing at Mipcom Studios Still Have Mixed Feelings IPTV For The Living Room T heU.S.TVnetworks couldbundle all their terrestrial channels for IPTV services, becoming less dependent on cable and satellite deliveries, but they’re afraid of upsetting their current business model.This is themessage derived from an interview with Gavin Campion, the president ofKitDigital, a company that he described as the first stop for any IPTV operator. There are four messages that Kit Digitalwould like to get across to theTV networks: IPTVmakes content cheap to distribute, massively increases available population, makes it easy to monetize and opens up newmarkets. According toCampion,who is based Disney, hasmore than two, and getting them to express a view on the straightforward question, “how important is MIPCOM as a market for selling to LatinAmerica,” is not an easy task. The largest studio selling contingent for Latin America comes from the Miami, Florida-based office of Disney Media Networks Latin America, represented here by at least five executives, three of whom are pictured at left: Jack Morera, Fernando Barbosa, and Fabiola Bovino. One of the studios with two such executives present is Warner Brothers, with both Jim Brehm, senior vice president, Latin America and Asia Pacific, (Continued inside) (Continued inside) WWW.VIDEOAGE.ORG ® OCTOBER 7,2009 DAY • 3 WEDNESDAY
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