Videoage International May 2018

42 May 2018 V I D E O A G E Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame in U.S. taxes (among other criminal charges), and Fox’s financial situation was precarious, with the company owing $600 million, the lending banks asked for a seven-year business plan, which Friscia prepared. Once the “ultimates” were presented to the banks, they rejected Friscia’s plan. At this point, recalled Friscia, “My boss called me in and said: ‘We need a couple million dollars more.’ Not wanting to inflate revenues, I simply canceled several TV series, and thus I eliminated huge deficits. In effect, I got more by giving less, and the banks approved the new plan.” In 1985, Davis sold his remaining Fox shares to Rupert Murdoch, and Friscia moved to Columbia Pictures, working under Herman Rush. At Columbia, Friscia became involved with another “ultimates” by-product — determining the value of the future shares of the 1975 to 1982 Barney Miller TV series for the show’s producer, Danny Arnold. At Columbia, however, they were called “clearances,” a term that Friscia disliked. Here’s how Friscia explained it: “Arnold thought Columbia TV was not maximizing the full value of the show in syndication, and thus, his share of the profits. During the negotiations, Rush and I met with Arnold, and I subsequently valued Arnold’s share of the series at $35 million. However, Coca Cola, Columbia’s parent company, settled for what Arnold demanded: $50 million for complete ownership. Reportedly, when Rush left Columbia, his replacement, Barry Thurston, wrote down [or reduced the asset of] the $50 million settlement to $35 million.” Friscia got closer to the “ultimates” again at his second stint at 20th Century Fox in 1992, this time as a consultant for the group’s International TV division. He was brought on board by Len Grossi, then an EVP. At that time, Fox was headed by Lucie Salhany, who left Paramount in 1991 to become Fox’s CEO. Friscia had met Grossi just before Friscia was terminating his first stint at Fox. When Grossi was CEO of Metromedia Producers Corp., Friscia interviewed with him for a financial position. He was told that Grossi always had black jelly beans nearby. Friscia recalled: “I called Grossi to set up the interview. It was around 1985, when I was leaving Fox. I prepared for the interview by purchasing a jar of Jelly Belly jelly beans to give him as a gift. The bribe worked, he offered me the job. (Many still joke that that is where the expression “bean counters” comes from.) “But, at the same time, I was offered a position at Columbia Television. I did not know much about Metromedia, but I did know that Columbia was a full-fledged studio. So I took the offer from Columbia.” A few years later, after Friscia left Columbia due to the reorganization by Embassy/Coca Cola, he had lunch with Grossi in the Fox commissary. As they looked back, the talk was that, had Friscia accepted the Metromedia position, he would have wound up back at Fox given the acquisition of Metromedia by Fox in 1986. In 1994, Salhany moved back to Paramount to launch the United Paramount Network, which later merged with The WB and is known today as The CW. Salhany took Grossi with her. In 2015, Friscia joined Grossi’s Baseline Media & Entertainment to form a new content marketing company: Media Content Group, which provides library and privately-owned intellectual property representation, legal consulting, and expert witnesses. In his career as a consultant, Friscia also evaluated the Weintraub Entertainment Group library in London, consulted with France’s M6 for a potential acquisition, met with Mexico’s Televisa to evaluate a television series for seven participants, and checked in with NBC to prepare participation statements for Saturday Night Live . These activities were in addition to time spent serving as a trial witness in the litigation between producer Alan Ladd, Jr. and Warner Bros., and representing Rocky producers in a potentially litigious situation with MGM, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement. When Friscia got involved with the “ultimates” in 1978, companies did not yet have office computers, and, in order to automate the process, which was officialized by the FASB in 1981, it was necessary to rent computer time. “At Fox we had a terminal in our office and were charged by a Century City company for the time-sharing by the minute,” recalled Friscia. At that time, the industry was dealing with just five rights: Theatrical, non-theatrical, network TV, domestic syndication, and international. In the years that followed, the number of windows grew at a slow, but steady pace until the turn of the century, when they exploded, reaching today’s 80-plus rights (which was reported in VideoAge ’s May 2017 Issue). “However,” said Friscia, “the number of rights is not the hard part. The calculation of the participants’ share is the most difficult part.” He explained further: “A participant can be a writer who could get a 2.5 percent share and some ‘ultimates’ can have several participants, including stars, producers, directors, investors, etc. And there can be different participation definitions for each participant like ‘gross,’ ‘adjusted gross,’ ‘modified adjusted gross,’ ‘net profit,’ etc. In addition, each participant gets an individual participation statement.” As far as license fee increases were concerned, the changes, according to Friscia, were mostly due to escalating production costs. “When I joined Fox under Salhany, I discovered that everything in their international license agreements was wrong,” he said. “The license fees and the number of runs were not entered in the computers, [thereby inviting] potential lawsuits because the same picture could be sold twice. Plus, availability was not entered correctly. This could have affected sales. It was just a mess. And my job was to find the errors and have them corrected for thousands of contracts.” Friscia found the same situationwhen hemoved to Orion Pictures, serving as VP, International Finance, in 1997, reporting to Sandra Gong, the company’s VP and controller. At Orion, Friscia said he “joined right during the ‘gap’ between the ‘old Orion and the new Orion.’ The old Orion won four Oscars in eight years, but was run as an amateurish operation.” Then, in 1997, just before Metromedia’s John Kluge sold Orion to MGM, “I discovered that all of Orion’s ‘ultimates’ were useless — all 675 of them,” he recalled. Friscia hasn’t participated at any international trade shows other than the Santa Monica, California-based American Film Market. However, he’s one of the original cast of the L.A. Screenings’ Veterans’ Luncheon, which is held annually at the InterContinental Hotel (formerly the Park Hyatt). The luncheon started in 2005 as an informal event attended by the late Jim Marrinan (then a TV consultant), Gary Marenzi (who had just left Paramount), and this VideoAge editor. The following year, it included Friscia, who had by then left Warner Bros. In subsequent years, Friscia coordinated the event, which at one point was attended by over 25 veteran TV executives. (Continued from Page 40) At the 13th annual L.A. Screenings Veterans’ Luncheon in 2017 At the 2nd annual L.A. Screenings Veterans’ Luncheon in 2006 At the WB Paris office in 2003. At right, Caroline Lang, now senior VP and managing director, French Speaking Territories, at WB Worldwide TV Distribution