May 2015 4 (Continued on Page 6) JKL Looking Back & Forward structure until retiring last month as executive vice president, Sales and Marketing, CBS Studios International (CBSSI), but continuing to serve as a consultant for special projects. Very reservedyet cheerful andwithagoodsense of humor (his stage name is Giuseppe Lucchesi), JKL was always careful not to upstage his bosses and he was well measured in his answers to the press. He’s also been known to shy away from controversy and is appreciated for being very generous. In 1993 Lucas donated his bone marrow to save the life of a complete stranger: a 26-yearold waitress in Mesa, Arizona. According to an account published in the May 13, 1994 edition of The Los Angeles Times, “When Lucas first matched and learned he could become a donor [his] doctor told him of the serious risks of surgery, of the possible failure of the procedure, of the pain.” His answer, wrote the paper, was “I can’t imagine any pain great enough to keep someone from saving another life.” After receiving his B.S. in accounting from Villanova University and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology, (supporting himself by driving a taxi in New York City) the New Jersey-born Lucas served as staff accountant for the Galbreath-Ruffin Corp. and movies) was reported to have grown from $497 million in 2007 to $1.1 billion in 2011. Lucas moved to Los Angeles with his wife Maxine and their two children (seven-year-old Maxwell and three-year-old Joey) in 1987, when the international TV division of Paramount was relocated from the 45-story Gulf+Western building in Manhattan (in which the upper floors were prone to swinging over half a meter in high winds) to the Paramount Studios in Hollywood (which was subject to earthquakes). JKL’s office in theMaurice Chevalier Buildingwas for PricewaterhouseCoopers, before starting at Paramount Pictures at the Gulf+Western building in New York City. Lucas joined the Paramount International Television division in 1979, then under Bruce Gordon, and in 1983 became vice president. From 1997, he worked directly under new division president Gary Marenzi, who in 1998 promoted him to EVP. In 1994 Sumner Redstone’s Viacom acquired Paramount and in 1999, CBS. In 2004 Viacom merged CBS Broadcast International and Paramount International Television to form CBS Paramount International Television. In 2006 Viacom split from CBS, with the former retaining Paramount Studio and the latter Paramount’s program library. In 2009, CBS dropped the Paramount name to form CBS Television Studios. From 2004 Lucas worked under Armando Nuñez, with whom he continued working until Nuñez was appointed president and CEO of the CBS Global Distribution Group in 2012; he then reported to CBSSI president, Barry Chamberlain. He was a welcome fixture at all major international TV trade shows, which he started to attend in 1979 with the Monte-Carlo TV Market. In the process, JKL saw revenues from U.S. international TV sales climb from the early figures of millions of dollars (industry-wide it was $175 million in 1975), to today’s billions. Considering inflation and other economic factors, industry revenues in the $250 million range in 1980 today would be worth $710 million, so in terms of growth it has been something like a compounded 10 percent a year industry-wide. A report in Illawarra’s Mercury on March 22, 2015 states that under Gordon, who retired in 1997, Paramount made $400 million a year. The same article states that Lucas was such a stickler for details that he was reprimanded by Gordon in 1993. Subsequently, under Nuñez, CBS’s international revenue (that did not include (Continued from Cover) Joe Lucas between Armando Nuñez and Barry Chamberlain, right Joe Lucas with Bruce Gordon and Gary Marenzi, right Lucas flanked by his son Maxwell and daughter Joey, at a football match during the 2001 L.A. Screenings Joe Lucas andVideoAge’s Dom Serafini were born just a few days apart. They’ve been friends since 1979. JKL’s office was next to the studio’s nursery, where employees left their infants and, at times, found in him a helping hand with crying babies.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5