Videoage International December 2017

16 December 2017 V I D E O A G E J ames Brian McGrath (known as Brian to most) entered the television business in 1970, a year before the company he joined, a spinoff of CBS Syndication and CBS Cable, became Viacom. After that, McGrath’s career was always ahead of the curve. It was a rollercoaster of a curve at times, but he always seemed to come out on top despite tumultuous circumstances. McGrath left Viacom just before the company went through internal management conflict. In 1981, he joined Columbia Pictures International, near the end of its own management turmoil, and a year before the studio was acquired by Coca-Cola. He left it in 1988, a year before it was sold to Sony. In 1991, McGrath became president of the seven- year-old International Sports and Leisure (ISL) in Lucerne, Switzerland. He left in 1994, seven years before the company collapsed under debts amounting to $300 million in today’s U.S. dollars. He joined Universal Studios in 1996, a year after it was acquired by Seagram fromMatsushita, and left in 1999 before its disastrous sale to Vivendi. In the process, he also managed to avoid the videotape format war between Sony’s Betamax and Matsushita’s (Panasonic) VHS. The two competing Japanese companies assumed that Hollywood would ultimately select a de-facto format by using it for its home video content, so each decided to own its own studio. Even though VHS won consumer acceptance by early 1990, it enjoyed a relatively short period of dominance since it was replaced just seven years later by DVDs, which, in turn, was replaced by streaming in 2007. A side note: After the 1989NAB convention in Las Vegas, this writer met Sony’s co- founder Akio Morita at a press conference in New York City and casually mentioned that Panasonic was looking to buy Universal Studios (which would happen in 1990), at which point he replied that Sony was also going to own a Hollywood studio, in effect, anticipating the September 28, 1989 Columbia Pictures acquisition. But let’s proceed in a less whirlwind fashion, because during several pauses in his television career, McGrath embarked on a few start-ups, the second of which was the Maryland-based Thoroughbred Racing Association (TRA), which he started working at while living in New York. Here’s howone racing tradepublicationexplained it: “Shortly after launching Equibase [a partnership between The Jockey Club and TRA to establish a central database of racing records], the TRA board pursued a national effort to market the sport, creating the position of commissioner and filling it in 1994 with BrianMcGrath, amarketing executive. Theeffortwas ill-fatedfromthestart, andMcGrath’s position was eliminated just 18 months later amid infighting among TRAmember tracks.” McGrath’s somewhat irregular path to television was through banking. After graduating at the age of 22 from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. in 1964 with a degree in International Business, he joined Chase Manhattan Bank in his native New York City. Two years later he was assigned to a branch that handled the CBS account. In 1970, hewas approached and hired by George Castell, the CBS treasurer. This is how McGrath recalled it: “He hired me as Director of Financial Services, reporting to him as Treasurer. My responsibilities included our banking relationships and Investor Relations. “In the same year, [U.S. regulatory agency], the FCC, determined that networks [like CBS] should no longer be involved in film and television syndication, as well as the cable television business. CBS, being in both, decided that they would create a new entity, Viacom International Inc., and spin it off to their shareholders. I was technically a CBS employee [but] I went over to Viacom at the anticipated spin-off [which] was held up for about six months.” McGrath further expanded: “The company they created, while relatively small, had some attributes that many other new entities of the time did not possess. It was a prime rate borrower from Morgan Guaranty and Chemical Bank, and had a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. To my mind it seemed that Viacom would be around for quite some time.” Another perspective on how Viacom came about canbe found in the2007bookbyRalphBaruch, How I Escaped Hitler, Survived CBS and Fathered Viacom : “So, here was the deal: I was to lead a brand-new company whose board I did not know… with an oppressive contract dictated by CBS, with a number of executives cast off by CBS, an outside law firm in which I had no confidence, a costly employee benefits plan, an expensive lawsuit hanging over and a forfeited microwave license to connect many of our cable systems,” wrote Baruch. Nevertheless, as McGrath later explained to VideoAge , “Fortunately, enough good decisions were made during the ensuing years that Viacom grew significantly, even to the extent that it ultimately acquired CBS [and Paramount], among other businesses.” When the current major shareholder, Sumner Redstone, took over the company in 1987, he gave instructions to call it “VayaCom” — not “VeeahCom,” as it was previously known. Continued McGrath: “[At Viacom] first as Assistant Treasurer and then Treasurer, I worked closely with Baruch, Terry Elks, Ken Gorman, Doug Dietrich and a number of other seasoned executives who went on to make their ownmark.” But new challenges soon arrived. He explained: “While I was Treasurer, Storer Broadcasting undertook an unfriendly takeover action [in 1977] to try to acquire [Viacom]. I was in California on business at the time and received a call from Baruch, who said, ‘You’ve got to come back to New York as soon as possible, we have a major problem.’ I was then charged with hiring lawyers, a proxy solicitation firm, and new investment bankers as our current one was in cahoots with Storer. We mounted a strong takeover defense. It was an exciting and nerve-racking time, but everything worked out in the end and Viacom retained its independence.” VideoAge reached McGrath first while at his summer home in Frankfort on Lake Michigan, then again after he returned to his Santa Barbara, California residence. The Brian McGrath Story Entwined With Viacom, Coca-Cola, Sports and Universal By Dom Serafini Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame (Continued on Page 18) McGrath (seated, center) in a VideoAge photo at NATPE 1985 in San Francisco J. Brian McGrath today (Continued from Cover)