VideoAge International October 2018

48 October 2018 V I D E O A G E R osario Ponzio epitomizes the golden era of Italian television — the period between 1979 and 1989 when Silvio Berlusconi’s private TV channels dominated the Italian and international markets and when publicaster RAI had executives of the caliber of Carlo Fuscagni (RAI-1), GiampaoloSodano (RAI-2), andGiuseppe Rossini (RAI-3) running the TV channels. It was also a time when Berlusconi could count on the talents of Carlo Freccero, Roberto Giovalli, and Giorgio Gori to helm his TV channels. And a time when RAI/ITC co-productions do- minated ratings charts in the U.S. with such mini- series as NBC’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977). The Lo- rimar/RAI co-production Christopher Columbus saw similar success when it aired on CBS in 1985. That was the period in which Italy’s MIFED (the world’s first film-TV trade show created by Michele Guido Franci) was still considered the most important international film-TV market, and when RAI’s Prix Italia attracted top-level TV executives from around the world. (It wasn’t until later, in 1995, that Sodano would launch RAI’s Cartoons on The Bay, an animation TV festival.) It was also a time when Renato Pachetti ran RAI Corp. in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Montevideo, Uruguay—heading a U.S. operation larger than that of the BBC — and managed to have 10 major RAI miniseries co-productions broadcast on every U.S. TV network. Ponzio, who started in the entertainment business at an early age, worked in every aspect of television, including the music side and the production and distribution side (with Lew Grade’s ITC). He also started his own independent distribution company (WTA), and worked for Lorimar and Warner Bros. Ponzio’s career flourished when Berlusconi first launched private television networks in Italy (and in Europe) in the late 1970s, but it also encountered a stumbling block when Berlusconi became Italy’s Prime Minister for the second time in 2001, and his major clients — the previously competing RAI and Mediaset — began being referred to as Raiset. Ponzio retired from the television business in 2008. Just three years later RAI Corp. closed its doors, in effect declaring the end of what was left of the golden era of Italian television. Ponzio described his entrance into show business during a lunch with a VideoAge reporter in Rome last summer. “In 1962, at 19 years old, I stopped playing the drums in a semi-professional band and for the next 10 years I worked for various record labels as a record producer and publisher.” But, explained Stefania Leodori-Barreau, who worked for Ponzio for 10 years at the Rome office of Warner Bros., “Ponzio’s first vocation wasn’t music, but football (soccer). Unfortunately, a knee injury prevented him from professionally joining Roma Football Team, so he joined a band, instead.” Ponzio explained that it was while he was playing drums for that band that he began working for a music publisher whose function was primarily to collect copyright fees on behalf of foreign record labels. In 1965, he attended his first trade show, MIDEM, which focused on music rights. His first TV market was MIP-TV in 1974. The publishing company where Ponzio worked also represented Italian pop singer Little Tony, whose independent PR agent was Francesco De Crescenzo, a gregarious and flamboyant character. During a visit to London in 1971, De Crescenzo had the fortune to meet Lew Grade, who ran ITC and was once considered one of the U.K.’s most celebrated film and TV producers. At that time, Grade, who was Jewish, had recently met with Pope John Paul II, and planned to co-produce several religious-themed TV series with RAI. He asked De Crescenzo to create an ITC office in Rome. To help him out, De Crescenzo recruited Ponzio, and in 1972 they founded ITC Italiana Srl. De Crescenzo became the managing director and Ponzio the marketing manager. This forced Ponzio to perfect his rather basic English, which, he jokingly said, “was achieved by reading Playboy magazine.” At that time ITC was co-financing two six-hour miniseries with RAI, Moses The Lawgiver and Jesus of Nazareth . Both were produced by the recently deceased Vincenzo Labella. ITC Italiana was then the only Italian office of a foreignTV company. Itwasn’t until the early 1980s that some U.S. TV companies, such as Dutch- owned PolyGram (with Italo Tinari), Worldvision (with Martin Kiwe), and Columbia (with Jimmy Manca) opened their own offices in Rome. Today, CBS, Disney, Fox, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Viacom, andDiscovery all maintain Italian offices for TV sales (although, NBCUniversal does not). Although Armando Nuñez Sr., who at that time was EVP of the U.S. branch of ITC, referred to De Crescenzo and Ponzio as “agents”, Ponzio said that was “not so,” adding that, “we were both employees. I wish we had been agents. With all the business we generated, we’d been rich.” Labella, who died last July, was then one of Italy’s most prolific TV producers and yet very little about him is available today — neither in print nor online. A very short German-language Wikipedia entry gave 1937 as his birth date, although he was actually born in 1925. From Los Angeles, his wife Sue provided some additional information: “A descendant of a longtimeVatican family, Vincenzowas bornwithin Vatican City’s walls and grew up in an apartment adjacent to the Sistine Chapel. He attended the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.” An Italian TV old-timer reported that Labella, De Crescenzo, and RAI’s Ettore Bernabei were well connected with the Vatican, but because De Crescenzo was a controversial personality (who was also described as being of a litigious nature), people interviewed for this article would not go on the record about him. However, according to Ponzio, the true Vatican insider was Labella, not De Crescenzo. De Crescenzo, who died two years ago at age 83, was a larger-than-life personality, and was also known for his impressive art collection. Richard Milnes, who at that time was at ITC in London (before going to WB), recalled that, “De Crescenzo was also a good-looking guy.” This was also confirmed by Roberta Cadringher (a representative of RAI’s Carlo Fuscagni), who added that De Crescenzo tended to be arrogant and a troublemaker. Reportedly, his wife (who he met when she was a receptionist at RAI and who left her first husband to marry him) and their only daughter refused to visit him when he was on his deathbed. Today, there is no written testimony about this former powerful person in the Italian entertainment sector. De Crescenzo was very powerful at RAI, particularly when the broadcaster was controlled by the governingChristianDemocrat party, which, in turn, was under the influence of the Vatican. With the 1975 reform, when RAI went from governmental control to parliamentary control, De Crescenzo lost some of his overall power, but maintained an outsider’s grip on the broadcaster’s first TV channel, RAI-1, which remained under the Vatican’s influence (at the time, it was reported, he exaggerated his level of authority, though). Meanwhile, RAI-2 went under the control of the Socialist party, and RAI-3 under Communist party control. In 1992, after serving as RAI’s director general (1961-1974), Bernabei (1921-2016) founded the production company Lux Vide, famous for Bible- inspired TV series. According to the MIA (Italian Audiovisual Market) website, the Lux Vide ownership includes the Vatican’s Science and Faith Foundation. The mythic Lew Grade — who started at birth in Ukraine as Lovat Winogradsky (1906), later becoming Louis Grad (1926) and finally Lew Grade in 1928 — founded two ITCs: The U.K. unit (called Incorporated Television Company) and the American branch (called the Independent Television Corporation). By Dom Serafini Rosario Ponzio: Beating the Drums in Italy While Beating the Odds in L.A. Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame A toast with friends at the Veterans Luncheon at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles in 2007 In 1992, Ponziopaid a visit toWB’s Londonmanager Richard Milnes (pictured at left standing) on the set of What’s UpDoc , a WB two-and-a-half-hour live show for ITVU.K.WB ’sMichael J. Solomon is at right in the foreground, next to Ponzio (Continued on Page 50)