Water Cooler

By Leah Hochbaum Rosner

The Asia Television Forum (ATF) opens this week, and while talk of next year’s similarly themed Reed Midem-backed AMAZIA market has some ATF insiders worried, it’s business as usual for attendees of this year’s eighth annual event.

“Asia is a key region for us,” said Lionel Marty, president of Worldwide Distribution for Taffy Entertainment, which opened a Shanghai office last year in order to facilitate Taffy’s business in the Asian region. “It’s great that [Asian] broadcasters are taking note of our commitment to working closely with them,” he said.

Held November 28-30 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, ATF is organized by Reed Exhibitions, which, along with Reed Midem (organizers of AMAZIA), is part of the Reed Business Group, which means that two divisions of the same company are now competing for the same audience. The 2007 ATF event boasts an impressive conference slate, including an opening address titled “What is Content Protection,” which will aim to explain how to shield content while still maintaining a healthy, yet competitive, distribution market. Other seminars include a Mobile TV Forum with topics such as a keynote on “Convergence Beyond Internet, Media and Telecoms: The Emergence of the Seventh of the Mass Media” and a panel on “Telco, Content Owners, Broadcasters: Friend or Foe?” In addition, the market will feature a focus on sports content, with seminars such as: “Sports on Television: Latest Worldwide TV Trends,” “Sports Content Media Trends,” “Beijing 2008: Opportunities and Challenges” and “Sport Planning on TV in Asia,” which will advise attendees on how to manage different audience and advertiser preferences in different regions.

Next year, in order to combat the daunting AMAZIA, ATF has already announced plans to expand into Singapore’s Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre. “Throughout the years, we have made strategic changes to keep us relevant with industry developments,” said Michelle Lim, general manager of Reed Exhibitions. “To meet demands for increased space, ATF will be moving to Suntec in 2008, where we will be offering a suite-style exhibition concept.” Lim went on to say that she’s confident that the ATF will continue to be a success, noting that over 45 percent of the 2008 space has already sold out. “ATF has proven itself again and again for the past seven years,” she said. “It is an event created by the industry, for the industry.”

Although there’s no way to estimate how many people will be on hand for what might very well be the ATF’s last hurrah should AMAZIA gain strength, last year’s ATF came to a close with an estimated U.S.$47.1 million worth of sales concluded at the market, surpassing the previous year’s U.S.$33 million. The market was at an all-time high in seller and buyer participation from a total of 49 countries. The Asian presence was strong, with 121 Asian sellers, including 25 from Singapore alone. This year, market growth of more than 10 percent is expected. It remains to be seen if next year’s ATF will show continued growth… or if AMAZIA’s very existence deals it a deathblow.

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By Leah Hochbaum Rosner

Poland made history at the 35th annual International Emmy Awards, held at the New York Hilton on Monday night.

Hosted by U.S. stage and screen actor Roger Bart, and organized by the New York-based International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the show awarded Poland’s The Magic Tree (from TVP SA) with the prize in the Children & Young People category, garnering the region its first-ever Emmy.

Poland’s win, did not, however, release the grip that U.K. TV companies seem to have on the International Emmys. U.K. productions boasted seven wins.

The ceremony, which ran even longer than an actual Emmy Awards telecast, also awarded prizes to The Chosen One’s Pierre Bokma (The Netherlands) and The Street’s Jim Broadbent (U.K.) in a tie for Best Performance By an Actor and Marie Besnard-The Poisoner’s Muriel Robin (France) for Best Performance By an Actress. BBC Comedy’s Little Britain Abroad snagged the award for Comedy, while The Street (U.K.) picked up the prize for Drama. Additional statues were bestowed in the categories of Documentary, Non-Scripted Entertainment and TV Movie/Miniseries.

An international cast of star-studded presenters was on hand, including Sam Waterston, Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming, Gloria Reuben, Rob Morrow and Katrina Bowden.

Robert De Niro presented the International Emmy Founders Award to 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former vice president Al Gore for his role in launching cable/satellite channel Current TV, as well as his ongoing efforts to alert the world to the imminent dangers of global warming.

Earlier in the day, Gore (or “Al Bore,” as many dubbed him) served as the keynote speaker at the International Academy luncheon. There, he dully described the merits of his TV network. But since the proceedings were inexplicably “off the record,” we cannot report on it.

Here is a full list of the winners:

2007 International Emmy Award Winners

ARTS PROGRAMMING
Simon Schama’s Power of Art: Bernini
United Broadcasting Corporation/WNET/Thirteen
United Kingdom
Nominees: Simon Schama (Presenter), Clare Beavan (Producer, Director)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR – TIE
Pierre Bokma
The Chosen One
VPRO Television / IdtV Film BV
The Netherlands

AND

Jim Broadbent
The Street
Granada Television for BBC One
United Kingdom

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Muriel Robin
Marie Besnard – The Poisoner
Ramona / RTBF / To Do Today Productions
France

CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE
The Magic Tree
TVP SA
Poland
Nominees: Andrzej Maleska (Director), Hanna Probulska-Dzisiów (Editor)

COMEDY
Little Britain Abroad
BBC Comedy / Little Britain Productions
United Kingdom
Nominee: Jon Plowman (Executive Producer)

DOCUMENTARY
Stephen Fry – The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive
IWC Media / BBC Scotland
United Kingdom
Nominees: Stephen Fry (Presenter), Ross Wilson (Producer/Director)

DRAMA SERIES
The Street
Granada Television for BBC One
United Kingdom
Nominees: Sita Williams (Executive Producer), Roxy Spencer (Script Executive)

NON-SCRIPTED ENTERTAINMENT
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?
BBC Entertainment
United Kingdom
Accepting: John Plowman Executive Producer: Jon Plowman

TV MOVIE/MINISERIES
Death of a President
Borough Films for MORE4
United Kingdom
Nominees: Gabriel Range (Producer, Director, Writer), Simon Finch (Producer, Writer)

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By Dom Serafini

Have you noticed how the TV trade media never comment on each other in print? This brings to mind my first meeting with Bob Oswaks, who today is at Sony Pictures Television, but was then, in 1980, with Tandem/TAT. I was international editor of (now-deceased) TV/Radio Age. As soon as I started to trash the competing publication, the also deceased TV World, he forcefully stopped me in my tracks. Apparently this no-no was an unwritten rule in Hollywood. After that lesson, I never commented about our competition, either in spoken word or in print.

Now, exactly 27 years after that initial encounter with Bob, the urge to comment on a recent trade publication episode that reverberated throughout Hollywood is too strong to ignore, and for that, Bob’s forgiveness is begged. Being the first comment among the trades, however, it will be kind and considerate and rather gentle for this feature’s expectations.

The episode that triggered this groundbreaking editorial milestone concerns the hiring of Elizabeth Guider as The Hollywood Reporter’s new editor-in-chief: something that received plenty of general press ink in Hollywood, especially in the L.A. Weekly, but not in the trades.

So, if The New York Times can comment in print about its main competitor, the Wall Street Journal, why can’t VideoAge comment on a trade story that is fascinating the industry?

While serving in several editorial capacities at Variety, Guider became popular, respected and well-liked; both with the readers and the trade magazine sector itself. At the most one could say she’s a bit too touchy (for example, never call her Liz!), but that’s the extent of it, considering that I’ve know her since before she joined Variety full-time in 1989 after a stint in Rome, Italy. Guider has always been a Southern belle (she’s from New Orleans) with a European flavor and a good journalist with a great intellectual mind (with a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies).

This is why it was startling that a negative review about her would appear in any publication. But that’s exactly what happened with the L.A.Weekly’s reporter Nikki Finke, who posted several negative comments on her Deadline Hollywood Daily (DHD) blog, with statements such as: “Is she a get or just an also-ran?” and “she’s an editorial lightweight.”

More personal tidbits were also revealed, such as the fact that Variety’s top editor, that veteran of veterans Peter Bart, used to call her “Guido,” possibly a nickname for Guid-er, but most likely related to the fact that she speaks perfect Italian.

The setting for more interesting things to come began to take shape when Holland-based VNU, THR’s publishing company, was acquired a few years ago by venture capitalists and renamed Nielsen Business Media (NBM).

Meanwhile at Variety, Guider moved from a number-three position on the masthead in 2006, as an executive editor, to number nine in 2007, as an editor-at-large. Clearly, things weren’t working well for Elizabeth.

According to the L.A. Weekly’s Finke, the masterminds of Guider’s defection were former Variety duo, Gerry Byrne (who became a NBM consultant) and Eric Mika, now THR’s publishing director. The explanation given is that THR wants to beef up its international standing, which, together with Variety, has reportedly not been a source of much profit lately, especially in the TV sector.

The fact that Variety wasn’t doing well internationally was something that Mika mentioned to me at MIP-TV in April when he went over to NBM. However, after sliding to THR, he didn’t even bother to reply to a congratulatory note. Similarly, at THR my esteemed Elizabeth did not return phone calls after an initial e-mail exchange.

This doesn’t surprise me, considering that years ago THR’s former publisher asked the company’s lawyer to send me a warning note in response to my request to stop poking at VideoAge’s services to the industry.

In order to better understand why the L.A. Weekly became so vociferous against Guider, I asked the article’s author, Finke, if the story was assigned to her or she pitched it to her editors. I also wanted to find out if she ever met Guider, to which she declined to further comment beyond her DHD/L.A. Weekly postings and columns.

My take on the whole thing is that, unfortunately and by nobody’s fault, the international business for those two large trades will never be meaningful under their current business models. First, because the industry’s marketing and promotion revolves around trade shows, and these events have their own peculiarities. Second, because there are too many trade publications. Perusing MIPCOM’s and the AFM’s trade bins it’s easy to see the incredibly large number of trade rags. Most of them are totally useless in the general sense, but some exhibitors prefer to spread very little money among many tiny titles than concentrate their marketing money among a few strong titles. Third, both THR and Variety are received at most offices (either for free or, as in my case, for the fee I feel like donating). Therefore, there are no incentives to pick them up at trade shows.

Naturally, there could be a solution to their international problems, and I’m pretty sure that the BMG (Byrne-Mika-Guider) will come up with it.

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By Dom Serafini

Last spring, the Los Angeles Times ran a story titled, “Mainstream media in a digital panic,” explaining: “many of the people who direct mainstream newspaper and television coverage are in a panic over the migration of readers and viewers to the Internet.”

In order to stop the hemorrhaging of readers and viewers, the mainstream media (a.k.a., the “old” media) is copycatting what the “new” media does: basically focusing on gossip and sex. Sports, money and politics are also covered, but colored with the aforementioned spins: meaning political news is worthy of coverage only if it is part of a scandal.

This reminds me of what destroyed Italian music. When singers such as Domenico Modugno (Volare) and songwriters such as Edoardo Di Capua (’O Sole Mio or, in Elvis Presley’s rendition, It’s Now or Never) faded away, the new generation lacked the creativity of the old guard and thus started to copycat the popular music coming from the U.S. and the U.K. Unfortunately mimicking the big English and American pop-stars and expecting success only because it was in Italian did not work out. Thus began the decline of the sector internationally and domestically. Today, only 15 percent of the songs played on Italian radio stations is Italian.

Going back to the “old” media, it surprises me, for example, when a resourceful newspaper such as The New York Times insists on covering the same sports that other papers cover better and ignore sports –– such as football (soccer in the U.S.) –– which are gaining more followers in the U.S. and are not covered by competing publications. The Times nickname is “The Gray Lady,” and, apparently, its management wants to continue to gray it rather than shine.

Another problem that I see with “old” media is how untruthful it has become by insisting on keeping reporters and editors who totally kissed up to the Bush Administration, thus providing a disservice to their readers and viewers. We’ve reached a point where even Hollywood can castigate “old” media, by saying that “With our films on Iraq, we’re doing what the press should have done.” Plus, just because supermarket tabloid Weekly World News trumpets on the front cover that “Alien Backs Arnold For Governor!” does that mean CBS Evening News has to do the same to keep viewers?

CBS Evening News with Katie Couric has lost seven percent of the newscast’s viewers since she took over a year ago, because she introduced “soft” news. On the other hand, ABC World News with Charles Gibson gained three percent. Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather commented that corporate ownership has resulted in celebrity news taking the place of in-depth investigation. Naturally, the news has lost audiences. But even readers of WWN, which in the 1980s reached 1.2 million, are now finding more outrageous stories on the Web, putting the tabloid out of business.

Broadcasters are now tumbling upon each other trying to get on the MySpace and YouTube bandwagons without a clear reason (aside from the fact that all the others are doing it!) instead of making them linger in their waiting rooms. Clear Channel dumped its TV stations out of digital panic and Tribune is contemplating doing the same, without considering –– as Internet pioneer Mark Cuban has stated –– that consumers like to watch television, especially on a 70-inch set, so there is no need for broadcasters to rush into anything.

It is obvious that the Internet revolution has changed the rules of the game, but not the game itself. The changes, however, are not just limited to broadcasters and print media. Ad agencies are also puzzled as to best way to organize to face the digital future. And what about the fight in the U.S. between the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Writers Guild of America, which has been called a “jihad” (holy war)? Indeed, digital is changing the residual model (initiated by radio in the 1930s when tape was introduced). Now, according to the new view, talent is entitled to an initial fee and nothing more. The copyright for content automatically belongs to the entity that puts up the cash to make it.

Because digital media is disorienting, broadcasters are unable see how this new media can help them. The “old” media sees growth in the digital area and decline in its traditional business. In a panic, the “old” media is trying to emulate the music industry by joining the revolution and at the same time, fighting it. This strategy, which was a losing proposition from the beginning, has brought on Warner Music’s Edgar Bronfman’s statement: “The music industry is growing, the record industry is not growing.”

I really don’t understand this “panic.” After all it’s a contest between professionals and amateurs. Something like 60 percent of the Internet content consumed by young users has been created by friends. Basically we are talking about an age of amateurship. An age in which amateurs are allowed to obfuscate the minds of media pros.

Even this siphoning off of revenues has no solid basis. While the overall U.S. population, for example, consumes more than 15 percent of its daily media online, the Internet accounts for only about six percent of total media dollars spent.

The “old” media should definitely leverage the “new” media to grow, but only by maintaining its values, standards and quality; and there are plenty of ways to do it. For the “old” media, copycatting the “new” media makes it awkward, unoriginal and out of place, not to mention out of viewers… which is exactly what happened to the Italian music industry.

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