Video Age International December 2016

Gershman attended Fordham University School of Law in the evening... “I had promised my father before he died in 1950 that I would go to law school.” 16 December 2016 V I D E O A G E Domestically, MGM’s film product was being sold by UA. They set up their own MGM/UA TV sales organization under Joe Tirinato. “Next was Fame . After the feature film had come out in 1980, we made a TV pilot and sold the series to NBC. After 16 episodes, NBC canceled it. In April 1982 at MIP-TV, anticipating that Fame might be canceled, Gershman met with buyers from around the world. It was a show that was performing well internationally, and he announced, “We’re going to keep it on the air, but you have to get me some answers because when we go to the L.A. Screenings in May; we’re going to have to move really fast. “At the L.A. Screenings when it was confirmed that NBC was not going to renew Fame , I reached the same buyers, and, within two days, got the commitments. In those days, the top network show internationally was grossing about $180,000 per hour ($475,000 in today’s dollars). We got about $350,000 per hour ($868,000 in today’s dollars),” he said. In the U.S., he met with Bob Bennett, who was running the seven Metromedia stations (now the FOX stations). In one meeting he agreed to commit for all of his stations and within two weeks, 92 percent of the country was sold. “We stayed on the air for another 131 episodes. Then the MGM/UA Network came along. One of my responsibilities was to sell the theatrical films to U.S. TV networks. It was right about that time that the networks stopped buying big theatrical films. Pay services were buying movies first. In the beginning, their audience wasn’t strong and the penetration wasn’t deep. So, when a movie played on HBO or Showtime, it didn’t matter. You could still get a 40 rating with a James Bond film or a big picture on the free-TV networks,” said Gershman. He continued: “As the HBO and Showtime market share increased, there was less leftover for thenetworks. In1983, all of thenetworks combined bought six movies for the year. I had pictures that were carried on the books worth about $82 million in projected sales ($199 million in today’s dollars), and nobody wanted to buy them. Realizing he had a serious problem on his hands, he came up with the concept of the MGM/ UA Premiere Movie and called Tony Cassara, who was then general manager of KTLA-TV and explained the concept. “It was a 24/30 package: 24 movies went into barter and 30 went into Pay- TV and syndication. “We would offer 24 movies that had never been played on free television, and we would barter those for a one-month period. The station would get two plays in that one month. “First the movie played on Pay-TV ($900,000 per title); then the television stations received one movie per month on a barter basis for 24 months ($600,000 per title for the whole U.S.); then it went back for a second Pay-TV window ($600,000 per title): then, back to the TV stations for a normal film license term — i.e., three-four years-for cash.” He then added six more titles that had previously played network TV to make the full 30. He sold the package, and cleared over 90 percent of the U.S. “At the time the stations that committed to the barter also had to commit to the cash purchase. It won three Emmys and other top prizes like the Golden Nymph at the Monte Carlo Film Festival,” Gershman said. Of that period, Anita First (formerly Anita Gershman — Larry’s ex and third wife and business partner) recalled: “During one trip to MIP, Larry was on the phone in the sitting roomof our suite at The Majestic closing a deal for Lester Persky’s miniseries A Woman Named Jackie , and I was on the phone in the bedroom of the suite closing a deal for the Michael Mann miniseries Drug Wars: Camarena . We kept running back and forth into each other’s room to check on deal terms and whether we would/should agree to the various open points. We each closed our deal: Drug Wars won the Outstanding Miniseries Emmy for 1990, and Jackie won the Outstanding Miniseries Emmy for 1992. Larry handpicked those projects for WIN to acquire,” she said. “In 1994 there was a change in WIN’s ownership,” Gershman continued: “Our French partner, Revcom, did not want to stay in the entertainment business and Germany’s Degeto acquired Revcom’s share in WIN. Shortly after that, Carlton squeezed Central TV out of WIN, so there were two new partners in WIN. In late 1995 they acquired the oldWIN library and called their company Hamdon. “Anita and I started over, although we kept the name: WIN [and added] LLC. But in the first WIN, the members had a first look arrangement. In the newWIN, the members would buy everything on an output basis.” WIN LLC ceased production in 2002 after having produced close to 100 titles, but Gershman has continued to market the WIN titles around the world whenever availabilities come up. In the past two years he also has executive produced four movies for Lifetime. Kevin Goetz, founder and president of Screen Engine, a audience testing company, added some insight: “Larry gave me my first movie to produce and my second…and my third…and my fourth. His loyalty knows no bounds. He’s old school in the best sense but ageless in his talent, ideas and energy.” Concluded Zane Bair, U.S. rep for Australia’s Seven Network: “To me, Larry’s most noble attribute is the fact that he has always been the boy that grew up on those old-school streets of Brooklyn. No matter whom he learned from or with whom he rubbed elbows, Larry remains that boy; that man.” accomplished several things: It created the barter market. It created a second pay window, and that was worth another $600,000 per picture. Then there was the cash sale and all this happened simultaneously. So the combination of the barter deal and the cash sales grossed $86 million for the company on those 30 films. Within a year, every studio was doing it. “But the Premiere Network had no impact outside the U.S. Those pictures were sold internationally based on their theatrical reputations.” Internationally, Gershman is credited with negotiating a record-setting $80 million sales agreement for MGM/UAwith Degeto on behalf of ARD, the first German television network, which was the largest sale of television programming outsideof theU.S. at that time. That sale, however, was subsequently criticized by his successor at MGM, Norman Horowitz (posthumously an Int’l TV Distribution Hall of Fame honoree), for tying up rights for too long a period. In March 1986, Ted Turner purchased MGM/ UA from Kerkorian. Later that same year he sold to Kerkorian the UA portion of the library and kept the MGM films made up to May of 1986, he said. “At that time we were going through all sorts of management changes, and I wanted to go into business for myself and I had the idea for WIN. For the most part, the studios didn’t want to be in the business [of MOW and miniseries]. They wanted to be in the television-series business because it had a bigger profit margin,” explained Gershman. That particular time is described in detail in Gershman’s 2015 autobiography, A Kid From Brooklyn , where he revealed negotiations with Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi for a joint venture that, he wrote, were derailed by Berlusconi’s associate, (the late) Carlo Bernasconi, because Gershman refused to pay him a kickback. In 1988, moving to the area of movies and miniseries, he went to international buyers and asked, “if they’d pre-buy these movies.’ Each buyer paid a small amount to joinWIN. It was like a membership fee. The smallest was $15,000 and the largest $75,000. In aggregate, it raised about $550,000 from 22 broadcasters. That was their development fund. “We produced 91 movies and miniseries, Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame (Continued from Page 14) Gershman (top left) among other U.S. studios executives at NATPE 1985 (© VideoAge International )