12 June 2017 V I D E O A G E Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame force for us in the U.K., Scandinavia, and Africa. I was amazed at how well he was thought of by the buyers and his peers. Bill was loved by everyone in the business. The personal relationships he had with his buyers were amazing and certainly gained him enormous trust, which translated into wonderful sales years, and lifetime friends.” The Paramount “merger” in 2000 took Worldvision full circle, since it was created in 1954 by the ABC TV Network-Paramount company as ABC Films and, in 1959, it became Worldvision Enterprises, and as its president Henry G. Plitt, a former Paramount executive, was appointed. With the advent of the Fin-Syn rule in 1971 (which prohibited TV networks from owning the programs they broadcast), Worldvision was spun off as an independent company and acquired by five former ABC Films executives in 1973. Subsequently, Worldvision went through various ownerships (Taft Broadcasting and Great American Communications). In 1989 it was acquired by Spelling Entertainment, then a three-year-old public company, which eventually became 67 percent owned by Blockbuster. In 1994, Blockbuster merged with Viacom, which owned Paramount. Over the years, Viacom increased its Spelling stakes to 78 percent and in 1999 it paid $162 million to acquire the remaining 22 percent of Spelling. Reportedly, due to a shortsighted bean-counter division, Worldvision’s brand (which was a gold mine), was absorbed by Paramount with the goal of saving 10 percent of operations costs, and in the process Paramount lost an estimated $80 million revenue, out of the $110 million that Worldvision generated, especially overseas. Peck stayedwithParamount as consultant for one year and, later, as VP of European Regional Sales up until 2005, when he started his own consultancy company, which is still active with such clients as Italy’s Mediaset and Ukraine’s Star Media. At onepoint, Peckwas consulting 16distribution companies from six countries, including Russia’s Channel One. “In the beginning,” he said, “there was only one: the Russian production company Amedia. A few months later, the managers at Russia’sCentral Partnershipaskedme torepresent them as well. My relationship with Central went back to 1994, when I soldDallas to them. Then in 2006, Vlad Ryashin set up Star Media in Kiev and asked me to become a consultant for his company too,” he said. Over the years, at least since VideoAge began following his career, Peck has not changed much, except, perhaps being nicer to this reporter. Even his still-dense head of hair is just as white as when VideoAgeDaily first ran his photo at MIPCOM 1991. However, Peck pointed out that he was “not born withwhite hair. My hair was very dark at birth and continued to be so until, I guess, the 1970s. Blame the graying process on working for Bert!” But his early graying was surely not caused by his boss, since he had “no real challenges to mention of, but perhaps a few set backs, like when in 1985 Worldvision was declared persona nongrata in the U.K., after it sold Dallas to Thames Television, with claims that Thames Television went behind the back of the BBC, the original U.K. broadcasters of the program,” he said. Here is how Peck recalled the story: “We broke British broadcasting’s cozy system, whereby it was agreed that no broadcaster would poach a rival’s program. “Dallas had been getting huge ratings for the BBC, a situation that was upsetting Thames Television. In 1983 Pat Mahoney (head of Program Acquisition at Thames TV) said to me, ‘Bill, before you renew the next season of Dallas with the BBC, talk to Thames.’ We needed a price increase every year due to spiraling production costs, and the BBC made it very tough. Early in 1984 Pat made me an offer of $60,000 per episode; the BBC was paying $41,000 and were prepared to offer just $42,500 for the next season. Thames also offered us a life-of-series commitment for all remaining seasons with a 10 percent price escalation per year. “At NATPE 1984 in San Francisco, Bert met with Alan Howden, the BBC’s controller of Program Acquisition, and told him that we had received an offer for Dallas from ‘another U.K. broadcaster.’ Alan suspected he was bluffing to up the price, and telephonedMichael Grade, controller of BBC1. Grade assured Alan that this offer could not have come from ITV (of which Thames was a member), because he had spoken the previous day with Paul Fox, managing director of Yorkshire Television and head of the ITV Program Purchase Group, who had spent the previous afternoon with Bryan Cowgill, managing director of Thames. Cowgill had not mentionedDallas to Fox. “Cowgill and his controller of Programs, Muir Sutherland, had deliberately kept quiet about the offer. They also felt confident that they would persuade the rest of the ITV Network to take the series and were offering Worldvision full ITV Network rights. So, I took the contract to Mahoney to be signed by Cowgill and Sutherland. “When the story was leaked to the press, the BBC cried foul. Thames Television was accused of double-dealing, and Worldvision was considered a company not to do business with. “The Dallas saga even raised questions in the U.K. Parliament and went right up to the high court, where it was decided that the BBC get it back, but on the terms that Thames had offered us. Ultimately, Thames never showed a simple episode, and their contract was taken over by the BBC. “Then, in 1985, while still persona non-grata in the U.K., Worldvision acquired the international rights of the miniseries The Key to Rebecca. I presented it to the ITV group at MIP in the same year, and Warren Breach, controller of Planning and Acquisition at London Weekend Television, said to me, ‘Bill, this is just what you need right now – a great new show. ITV is very interested.’ A couple of months later, I did the deal with ITV, and everyone was friends again!” Peck concluded. One of Peck’s greatest career highlights was the 1991 invitation by Soviet Television to broadcast 20 hours of Worldvision programs during one week, which was viewed by an estimated 150 million people (the Soviet Union was dissolved early that year, but the TV network was still under the USSR Gosteleradio). According to Peck, “that was the first time that so much airtime was devoted to on American TV series.” In exchange for the airtime, Worldvision received five minutes per hour, which was then sold to advertisers. At that time, Worldvision was owned by Carl H. Lindner Jr.’s Great American Communications, who had investments in Chiquita Bananas. Upon hearing of the Worldvision deal, Lindner acquired 15 minutes of air time for Chiquita in the hope of resurrecting his banana business in Russia. Recalled Peck: “Neither Bert nor I had any idea he had a banana business in the Soviet Union. In those years, the average Soviet had no idea what a banana looked like, let alone how it tasted!” The other highlight was the $20 million deal with Channel 5 in 1997 just before it went on the air in the U.K. And what about now? “Nowadays the distribution business is very complicated. In the past you could shake hands. Today in the contracts, just for the ‘catch-up’ rights there are five pages of definitions,” Peck conceded. Peck with a client at MIP-TV in 1972 to demonstrate that pre-Worldvision his hair was indeed black Peck with his trademark Korean ginseng cigarette holder, circa 1995 Peck with daughter Tanya in 2002 (Peck has also a son, Boris) (Continued from Page 10)
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