Chicago Tribune
By Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune
Jun. 14--Synergy once was among the trendiest of buzzwords as media conglomerates justified pricey additions to their portfolios in the name of strategy.
It has of late become the verbal equivalent of the mullet for many of those same conglomerates now trimming unfashionable appendages they found useless. Bigger wasn't better for the likes of Time Warner and Viacom.
To which News Corp., corporate parent of 20th Century Fox, Fox TV, MySpace.com and a bunch of other global media assets, says, "D'oh!"
"I for one don't get it, this notion that these things don't work together," Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., told analysts in California on Tuesday at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications Conference.
"I don't mean to be overly critical, but it's not that hard to manage these synergy things. You sit there and get people in a room, you say: 'Look guys, there are two rules. No. 1, don't do anything to damage your business to help somebody else. No. 2, hey idiots, if on the margins something's going to help the sister company, figure out a way to help them.'"
Just a week ago, Chernin joined James L. Brooks, executive producer of Fox's "The Simpsons," in a conference room to discuss the TV show's theatrical film for next year with 40 or so representatives from every corner of the company, from TV to Internet, publishing to merchandising. For three hours, they talked about promotion and marketing possibilities for what already is a worldwide multibillion-dollar brand.
"We're going to galvanize the whole company," Chernin said. "I'm not sure it's easy to quantify, but I have no doubt that through getting the whole company to work on that brand, there is an increment of several hundred million dollars of 'Simpsons' profits in the next couple of years."
They've done it before with "Ice Age" and "The X-Men" movies. For example, within 10 days, 2.4 million MySpace users registered their affinity for "X-Men" as part of a promotion that not only hyped the latest film but also gave the company a list of fans to whom it can sell DVDs and other stuff.
This cooperative attitude manifests itself in many ways at News Corp. One of the most important is that it has made the company more open to technological advances and their sometime damning effect on existing businesses.
The advent of digital video recorders looked to help its DirecTV business by empowering viewers to better navigate the many programming choices available. But it threatened Fox broadcasting because it also empowered viewers to skip commercials. News Corp. arrived at its stance in support of DVRs in "a microsecond," according to Chernin.
"What we shouldn't do is handicap our satellite business in order to falsely protect a different business," Chernin said. "The broadcast business is going to have to learn how to live with DVRs. ... Technological change is going to come. It's going to affect every one of these businesses and you better learn to live with it ... and take advantage of the opportunities presented.
"The management challenge in that is a psychological challenge. You can sit here in one of these positions and say: 'Oh, my God, everything's changing. How am I going to protect my DVD business? How am I going to protect my broadcast business? How am I going to protect my newspaper business?' And I think the management challenge is to avoid that at all costs."
For some, the bigger they were, the harder they fell.
For News Corp., however, size still matters.
Quite a character: Is former Chicago Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke destined for stardom?
As with so many reality-TV characters, a lot depends on the editing.
Bravo has announced a July 24 debut for "Tabloid Wars," the six-episode reality series it shot last summer at the New York Daily News, during Cooke's stint as editor in chief.
The cable network says the series "provides a personal and powerful peek into the world of tabloid journalism where every day is a deadline," comparing it to a "visiting tornado."
Cooke, who was quite the meteorological phenomenon himself when this columnist worked for him, can be seen in a few of Bravo's publicity photos, including one shot of him standing in the Daily News newsroom with one foot on a stack of papers.
Contacted this week, he seemed uncertain whether his screen time would be affected by his exit from the Daily News at the end of last year to return to the editorial fold at the Sun-Times Media Group (nee Hollinger International). But it would be a mistake by Bravo to edit this editor.
Publicly dubbed "Cookie Monster" by the rival New York Post, Cooke has always been ready for his close-up.
Phil Rosenthal's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune
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