NATPE 2000: A Turning Point Toward Convergence
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HK: Can you talk about the syndication market? What is its
current status? I hear everything from it is alive and well, to
it is dead!
BJ: I think up until about six months ago, most people felt
that the syndication business in the traditional syndication sense
was gone. That it had matured, that it had evolved. I grew up in
the syndication business. I used to work for a company called Multimedia
and we sold Donahue, market to market to market and I traveled
all over the country. I have been to every city in America. It was
hard work but it was rewarding and we went literally to each station
and marketed our show, helped with promotion, etc. Today you go
to one person. You go down the street three blocks from my office
right here and you go to the guy who runs Fox stations. You can
cover almost half the country with a phone call. So, on the one
hand, the traditionalists in syndication are saying, "Oh, it
is dead. You just can't get clearances anymore. The big studios
control everything and they've got the big groups in their pocket.
You can make six sales now and cover the country with syndication
so the business is really awful." Then you can look at the
other side and say, "Well, that's just not true. In fact, the
business is stronger and healthier than ever. It is generating more
money than ever." This is true. It is generating huge amounts
of revenue, not only through barter and through the advertising
sales aspect of syndication, but also from license fees, partly
because of the changes in the regulations, the 1996 Communications
Act, which allowed the networks and studios to own part of the projects.
So they are investing more money in that and developing more product.
Therefore, the argument, against that first argument is, "You
are wrong. It is a very vibrant, healthy industry. It is just different.
It is not done the same way." I fall into the latter camp,
particularly after our last conference. In November people were
still saying, "Oh, NATPE look at all the new media stuff happening.
See? Syndication is dead. Nobody is going to go there to buy shows
anymore and so NATPE is scrounging around trying to redefine itself."
Well, that just wasn't true and in fact the development season was
late, there was almost ironically, a look and feel to NATPE like
10 years ago, when there was a very strong syndication business
going on the floor. Our new chairman Steve Mosko, from Columbia
TriStar, announced to the press at our press conference, that they
came to NATPE with two shows with no clearances, and they cleared
them all at NATPE. Now that has not been true the last couple of
years. So clearly when there is a need, and there is good product,
syndication works. It was a very important part of the conference
two weeks ago, which is fascinating because of all the new growth
in new media. Plus, we continue to develop internationally. We continue
to develop our cable presence. We continue to develop advertising,
but our core traditional syndication business had a huge resurgence
this year. That's why I think it all came together and made for
a very exciting conference.
HK: I've heard that from a lot of people saying, "You
missed it. This NATPE was great."
BJ: It really was and you never know ahead of time. It is
like going out on a date. You can do all the research you want and
the chemistry either works or it doesn't. It really worked this
year.
HK: You have touched on this, but what role does NATPE want
to play in the future?
BJ: We continue to be a mirror of what is happening in the
industry. The one core around which everything revolves with NATPE
is content. When we started, NATPE's need at that point was to provide
a forum for local program managers to get together and talk about
how to create local television shows. That was the need, that was
the purpose and that's how NATPE started. Then you fast forward
through the years and as syndication began to develop so did NATPE.
The meeting got larger and larger. There were two, and then three,
thousand people meeting in hotel rooms. Then in the early `80s in
Las Vegas we went to a floor show model, and it continued to grow
and grow to 17,500 approximate attendees this year in these huge
booths. But all of that constantly reflected what was happening
in the business, and what is happening in the business today? Well,
syndication as I said is vibrant, but different, so the emphasis
fifteen years ago was 100% syndication. Today that percentage is
drastically reduced because now we've encouraged participation from
cable, international, independent producers, new and interactive
media -- the network presence is much greater than before too --
so syndication now plays a 30% or 35% role in what NATPE is all
about. We are not inventing this. We are just reflecting how the
business is changing. Take a studio like Paramount and look at how
that studio has changed over the last 10 years. They were basically
a provider of television programming, and now they have a station
group, are into cable and new media. NATPE has evolved the same
way. We are not unlike any one of our corporate members in that
respect. We will continue to do that. As the business evolves more
and more toward a convergence with all these various media so will
NATPE.
HK: No matter how the industry changes, people's same priority
is to make money.
BJ: Correct.
HK: So no matter how they figure out a way to do it, they
will do it. It seems NATPE is turning into a forum for people to
meet and figure out how they are going to make money.
BJ: Absolutely! We are indeed. That is a good point. We are
very aggressive about our Web site and are always building up our
Web site and people ask, "If you do that, can't you hurt the
show? If you provide more and more opportunities for people to do
commerce and to talk to each other via your Web site, then why do
they have to go to a NATPE show?" I counter that by pointing
out, it is a people business, and secondly, just as you said, as
these new technologies develop and new means of providing programming
develop, people still need to know how to make money. You really
only learn that through personal contact and going to conferences
like ours where you can walk down the hall and bump into the president
of NBC Entertainment for example. From that chance meeting, who
knows what can develop! You can't do that on the Internet. You can't
do that with a phone call. You can't do that if you live here in
Los Angeles and you want to set up a meeting with Garth and you
don't know him. But at NATPE, suddenly the walls all come down and
everybody is there at an even level for three days. All the aspects
revolving around content are there under one roof. It is incredibly
efficient and very inexpensive when you compare us to other shows.
Small companies love it because they can knock off in three days
what it would take them six months to do and a fortune flying back
and forth to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. That's a great
role for us to play and we'll continue. That will always be our
focus: to provide a forum for people to learn how to develop the
business and it will evolve as those needs evolve. We are not stuck
in a rut. Believe me!
