VideoAge International October 2018

50 October 2018 V I D E O A G E Int’ l TV Distribut ion Hal l of Fame The U.K. ITC, founded in 1954, produced pro- grams for ATV (which provided independent tele- vision service onweekends for the London region). The U.S. ITC was founded in 1958 in partnership with Hollywood producer Jack Wrather (he sold his share to Grade two years later). That same year, ITC acquired the New York-based Television Programs of America (TPA). TPA distributed TV shows produced in-house and those produced both by the U.K.’s ITC and Wrather’s Wrather-Alvarez Broadcasting. The two ITCs distinguished themselves by the ITC logo that was shown horizontally in the U.S. and vertically in the U.K. Curiously, the logo of ITC Italiana was horizontal, like the one in the U.S. In 1982, Grade lost control of ACC (the U.K. parent company of ITC) to South African-born Australian corporate raider Robert Holmes á Court (1937-1990), who dismissed Grade and his entire staff. Earlier, Grade had allowed Holmes á Court to buy 51 percent of ACC voting shares. Recalled Ponzio: “After Lew Grade left ITC, De Crescenzo and I tried to remain [in a reduced role], but it was difficult to work with the new management and, in 1985, we both left ITC and formed World Television Associates, or WTA.” Their partner inWTA was Carlo Caracciolo (1925- 2008) of L’Espresso (a weekly) and la Repubblica (a daily) publishing fame. Subsequently, Ponzio sold his shares in WTA to Berlusconi. Shortly thereafter, the company dissolved, but Ponzio was reluctant to explain why. At about that time, in 1987, Michael J. Solomon, then president of Los Angeles-based Lorimar (a position he took on in 1986 when Lorimar purchased Telepictures, a company that Solomon co-founded in 1978), asked Ponzio to start and manage Lorimar International Italia in Rome. Solomon, today serving as CEO of Los Angeles- based Digital Content International, first met Ponzio in 1984 when Solomon, then chairman of New York City-based Telepictures, went to Rome to sell the Italian TV rights for the miniseries A.D. , which Ponzio later licensed to Canale 5 through his WTA. A.D. was a 12-part miniseries that Labella co- produced with Procter & Gamble and pre-sold to the U.S. TV network NBC. Solomon’s Telepictures acquired the international distribution rights. “I did the deal directly with Vincenzo,” recalled Solomon about the miniseries. “At [1984’s] MIP- TV, the promotion for A.D. was stupendous,” he boasted. And so, with A.D. , Ponzio went back to sell another Labella-produced miniseries. When Warner Bros. acquired Lorimar in 1990, Ponzio’s Rome office became Warner Bros. International Television Italia, and Solomon became president of Warner Bros. International Television. Prior to Ponzio (who ran the Rome office as general manager), Warner Bros. TV’s content sales to Italy was handled directly from Burbank, California, by studio division president Charles D. McGregor (1927-2011), who had an output deal with Reteitalia and a unique relationship with Reteitalia’s Daniele Lorenzano. Reteitalia was established by Berlusconi in 1979 as an umbrella company that handled acquisitions, productions, and content sales. It dissolved in 2002 well after the group began operating as Mediaset. Even though Mediaset was founded by Berlusconi in 1987, it absorbed all Fininvest TV activities in 1993 when Mediaset was traded on the Milan Stock Exchange, with Fininvest as the largest shareholder (39.53 percent). Fininvest was the company that Berlusconi used to create Canale 5 in 1980 and to acquire Italia 1 in 1982 and Rete 4 in 1984. When Solomon replaced McGregor as president of the Warner Bros. TV division, Ponzio could begin establishing relationships with both RAI and Reteitalia/Mediaset. With Solomon retiring from Warner Bros. and starting his own company in 1995, Ponzio continued under new Warner Bros. TV president, Jeff Schlesinger. That lasted up until Ponzio’s own retirement in May of 2008, when the Rome office came under the management of his number two, Domizia De Rosa. Of those years spent as a TV content distributor, Ponzio remembers two major conflicting challen- ges: “First to protect the Italian TV market from aggressive business practices from both the British [ITC] and the Americans [Lorimar and Warner Bros.], and at the same time,” he said, “managing to triple the Italian revenue for the same compa- nies.” And, he added, all of this needed to be done while also “satisfying the needs of my clients wi- thout favoritism.” Added De Rosa: “When clients complained about prices, he used to say that if you want to buy a Ferrari, you have to be prepared to pay for a Ferrari. Otherwise, you can buy any other car somewhere else. But not a Ferrari.” Ponzio explained that another of his challenges was to please his Italian clients, who were fierce competitors. “But I was fair and honest with them, suggesting only product that could bring them ratings,” he said. He also added: “In those years, the business was difficult, but certainly less complex than today. Thenwe were concernedwith the number of years to license and the number of runs, while today it is important to monetize a multitude of windows.” Ponzio’s career thrived when Berlusconi first launched private television networks in Italy (and in Europe) in the late 1970s, but it was hindered when Berlusconi became Italy’s Prime Minister for the second time (2001-2006) and RAI and Mediaset reportedly stopped competing. The Italian crisis for the U.S. studios began in 2002 with Berlusconi’s government, as described in the 2005 book Inciucio by Peter Gomez and Marco Travaglio. The book reported the August 13, 2002 exchan- ges between Paramount’s Italian offices with its Hollywood headquarters, where the fact that RAI and Mediaset were jointly intent on lowering both the license fees and volume of U.S. studio content imports was supposedly openly discus- sed. The book also reported that the Italian repre- sentatives of three U.S. studios met for breakfast in Rome to discuss Italy’s license fee problems. In Hollywood, it was assumed that the book authors lifted the communication from court filings from the Milan judge who requested the Paramount e-mails that mentioned Mediaset. This was indeed the case, as confirmed to VideoAge by co-author Travaglio. However, this scenario is contested by Ponzio, who stated that “RAI and Mediaset always competed. The problem was scarcity of funds for both entities.” The crisis, however, did not cause Ponzio too many sleepless nights. Tony Friscia, who first met Ponzio in Los Angeles in 1999, when Friscia was at Warner Bros., and visited him in Rome in 2001, described Ponzio’s lunch routine: “While in the U.S. he would never order pasta because ‘restaurants didn’t know how to cook it al dente ’ and, at the end of a meal, he’d dip his biscuit in Vin Santo as dessert. While visiting him in Rome together with my son Ryan, he ordered so much food for us that when we returned to our hotel we both passed out and slept until the evening. Rosario likes to wine and dine, for sure.” And about Warner Bros. in Rome: “His office was in a nice residential neighborhood, not in an office building or in a business area. Very much Rosario,” added Friscia. “Today,” concluded Ponzio, “when I’m not volunteering as president of a neighborhood soccer club in Rome (I’m trying to get kids off the streets and into the fields), I spendmy time sailing and caring for my only child, Antonello, who at 44 years old was diagnosed with narcolepsy, a rare long-term brain disorder that causes a person to suddenly fall asleep at inappropriate times. And, about my career in the entertainment business, I’m very pleased because I really did it all — except for being an actor!” Rosario with VideoAge ’s Dom Serafini in Rome last July At NATPE 1998 in New Orleans, Ponzio with Jeremy Boulton, who had just left BSkyB to join the acquisitions team at ITV, U.K. At theWB office inRome in 2001, l. to. r.:WB Italy executive director DomiziaDe Rosa, Ryan Friscia, Rosario Ponzio,WB L.A.’s Tony Friscia,WB Italy promotionmanager Fabrizio La Rosa (Continued from Page 48)