Video Age International May 2016

16 May 2016 V I D E O A G E Int’l TV Distribution Hall of Fame and waiting to see who would emerge as the winner. In one case, it was Jeff Schlesinger, who succeeded him as president of Warner Bros. International TV and is now president of Warner Bros. Worldwide Television Distribution. Telepictures and Lorimar merged in 1986, forming Lorimar Telepictures Corp., and Solomon became president of the new company, serving on the Board of Directors and green-lighting productions that included Dallas, Alf, Falcon Crest and Knot’s Landing . After four years, Lorimar Telepictures was acquired by Warner Bros., and Solomon changed hats again, becoming president of Warner Bros. International Television. At Warner Bros., Solomon became famous for his fabulous North Beverly Hills house parties given during the L.A. Screenings, which, after swelling to thousands of invitees, were moved to the studio lot, and thus started a tradition that continues today among the U.S. studios in the month of May. In addition, Solomon co-founded HBO Ole (now HBO Latin America), a pay-TV service in the region. Among Solomon’s other credits include the co- founding of the first satellite-delivered station in Scandinavia (SF Succe), and co-owning Armitraj-Solomon (a TV and feature film production company in India). Whenhis five-year tenure atWarner Bros. came to a close in 1995, Solomon set out to establish his own television company, Solomon Entertainment Enter-prises, which distributed independent television product to the international market. He established a partnership with Canal Plus in France andUFA in Germany to produce television movies. From 1995 to 1999, the operations were run by Belinda Menendez, who’s now president of International TV Distribution and Universal Networks International at NBCUniversal. Solomon also formed El Camino Entertainment Group (now North American Midway) by consolidating six of the key family-run companies in the U.S. and Canada that provided county and state fairs with rides, games and food. The business was bought out by an investment fund, and then came a management buy-out. Afterward, Solomon partnered with Shanghai Media Group Broadband and the Israeli company Ravy, which streamed Chinese-language broadcast net- works live on the Internet across the globe (with the exception of China). Nowadays, Solomon con- centrates on Truli Media Group, where he is founder and chairman. Truli is a digital aggregator of content that focuses on family and faith, and the company has more than 10,000 videos in HD, including messages from more than 250 churches in English and Spanish. He’s also chairman of NewYorkCity-basedVidaPrimo, a Latin music multiplatform. ( By Dom Serafini ) Michael Solomon Congratulations on your induction into the International TV Distribution Hall of Fame From your friends at YOU INVENTED THE BUSINESS! Solomon (l.) and Jack Singer in 1993 at the L.A. Screenings (Continued from Page 14) aaaMay_Issue1_2016_R10.indd 16 5/5/16 2:21 PM