NATPE Mentor, July '08

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:33:55 +0100

With NATPE's LATV Festival fast approaching, we thought we'd share some sage advice from many of this year's festival participants, including: Jordan Hoffner, YouTube; Jonathon Leess, CBS Television Station's Digital Media Group; Lori Schwartz, Interpublic's Emerging Media Lab; Bruce David Klein, Atlas Media; Philip Irven, Rebel Entertainment Partners; Brian Seth Hurst, The Opportunity Management Company; Daisy Whitney, Television Week; Philip Gurin, The Gurin Copmany; Pat Quinn, Quinn Media Management; and Laurie Scheer, Media Consultant/Pitching Coach.

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For the latest details and registration information for NATPE's LATV Festival, visit http://www.latvfest.net

NATPE Mentor: Stephen J. Cannell

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:28:27 +0100

Writer/Producer Stephen J. Cannell

Stephen J. Cannell’s taut physique and rugged good looks are more suggestive of a Hollywood leading man than one of its most prolific writer/producers. But since selling his first script in 1968 to It Takes a Thief, Cannell has created or co-created more than 40 shows, scripted more than 450 episodes of television, and produced or executive produced more than 1,500 television episodes. Included among his hit television series are The Rockford Files, Hunter, Riptide, Hardcastle & McCormick, 21 Jump Street, Wiseguy, The Commish and syndicated hits Renegade and Silk Stalkings. NATPE TV had the pleasure of interviewing Cannell in 2007, when he was awarded NATPE’s Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award… [view video]

NATPE Mentor: Peter Roth

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:03:03 +0100

Warner Bros.’ Peter Roth

From his earliest role as manager of children’s programs for ABC Television Network to the more recent achievement of overseeing production on a combined 31 programs during the 2007–2008 season for Warner Bros. Television and Warner Horizon Television, Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television, says modestly: “My role in each of the shows I’ve been involved with is nothing more than being a creative cheerleader.”

NATPE Mentor: Lew Klein

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:49:04 +0100

Lew Klein, founder, NATPE Educational Foundation

Lew Klein, one of the originators of the NATPE organization and founder of the NATPE Educational Foundation, will receive the NATPE Founders Award this year in recognition of his more than 45 years of dedication, sagacity and commitment to the organization and to nurturing and enlightening future members of the global television community.

A co-founder of NATPE, Klein had been teaching television programming for more than a decade when the organization held its first conference in May of 1964.

“The business school at Temple University offered one of the first courses in television production and direction, but of course they had no studio,” he recalls of the time. Klein, then a director for WFIL-TV, was given the added responsibility of overseeing the students who were allowed to use the station’s facilities as part of their hands-on production training. “That’s how I became involved in teaching.”

Although a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Klein laughingly relates how television courses were not available when he was in college. “There were no television courses when I was in school; there wasn’t even any television. I was always interested in journalism and newspapers and show business, and I took an unpaid job producing sports at a radio station the year between high school and college. After I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, I started out at as an assistant cameraman at WFIL-TV in 1950 and learned everything on the job.”

He would stay with the station for the next 22 years, working in programming and producing shows including American Bandstand, Frontiers of Knowledge, College News Conference and telecasts of Philadelphia Phillies baseball games. “There were so many more local shows then, because the networks didn’t program the entire day and we had to fill the air with news shows, sports shows, children’s shows, game shows, dance shows, pretty much anything we could produce well and as inexpensively as possible.”

Reminiscing about his days as executive producer of American Bandstand, Klein says: “When it went on the air, we hoped it would be another successful television show that would last for awhile, but we had no inkling that it would become a cultural icon. You start things like Bandstand, like NATPE, but I don’t think you ever imagine they’ll have the influence they both eventually had.”

Continues Klein: “Being in a certain place when something happens gives you the opportunity. That was true for NATPE as well as Bandstand. Being prepared when the opportunity arrives, that’s what they call luck, fate or timing.”

To illustrate his point, Klein tells of a little-known incident in the early days of American Bandstand. “When we started Bandstand, the host of the show who preceded Dick Clark got arrested one night for drunken driving,” he says. “Dick was doing a radio show at our sister station so we pulled him in. It was still a local program, but if that man hadn’t gotten in trouble, Dick might never have been put into the Bandstand show. And of course, when it became a network show, his career took off and has been phenomenal. But just think, it all hinges on something, some moment of fate. Dick was prepared for the opportunity.”

Klein was also presented with an opportunity in 1964. He recalls: “We were program directors for local television stations and, at that time, the ownership rules limited you to owning only seven stations.” Gathering together to discuss programming and other business trends and practices, the group would become officially known as the National Association of Television Program Executives. “It was a small group of people who all knew each other and it went along that way for a number of years,” says Klein. “There was no way I could have visualized how large NATPE would become.”

In 1970, the Financial Interest and Syndicate ruling (aka FinSyn) prevented TV networks from having a financial interest in the production or syndication of TV shows (in primetime) which presented an incredible opportunity for NATPE. “The FinSyn ruling created a climate for NATPE to explode in terms of its membership and its role in the industry. There were people there who were ready to accept that and forge ahead. You’ve got to be ready for whatever comes, but you never really know what’s going to come. Like the Boy Scouts, you’ve got to be prepared.”

In 1978, Klein founded the NATPE Educational Foundation. “NATPE had been around for 15 years. I felt we were on pretty solid ground, and needed a way to give something back to the industry. We began by awarding scholarships, but soon realized that we could reallocate our resources into workshops and grants that would reach hundreds of instructors and thousands of students over the years.”

In fact, as part of NATPE’s Faculty Fellowship program, professors are invited to attend NATPE as a means of learning what’s happening in the business right now. Those professors then take that knowledge and insight and share that with hundreds of students when they return to their schools.

At the 2008 NATPE Conference & Exhibition, Klein will oversee between 35 and 40 Faculty Fellows. “During the LATV Festival, the NATPE Educational Foundation spearheaded the Diversity Fellows initiative, and the participants from that were also invited to join the Faculty Fellows at the 2008 event. Most are from the Los Angeles area, so they’ll be able to join us in Las Vegas. The Faculty Grantees, the ones we sponsor during the summer at a television station or production house, they’re also invited to take part in the annual Conference & Exhibition. It’ll be the largest group we’ve ever had.”

The Foundation also underwrites the student intern program at the conference, which gives 40 or so very motivated young people a glimpse of what’s going on in the industry. Adds Klein: “Students are so anxious to hear from people who are active in the business world, and the intern program lets them do that. The industry changes every day. Textbooks are great, but they’re just not enough.”

This from a man who co-authored Broadcast/Cable Programming in 1980, a definitive textbook now in its seventh edition and still widely in use in schools around the country. Klein explains: “We asked a number of program directors, most of them NATPE members, to each write a chapter. Someone working at a network affiliate wrote about his experience, someone working for an independent wrote about that, and so on until we created the first textbook for television programming.”

Apart from his work with NATPE, Klein has continued to teach at Temple, where the School of Communication and Theatre annually presents the Lew Klein Alumni in the Media awards and the Lew Klein Excellence in the Media award for members of the media whose outstanding achievements and commitment to service bring honor to their profession. Recipients have included Chris Matthews and David Morse. In typical Lew Klein style, ticket proceeds from the awards benefit the school.

Over the years, Klein has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania and, in 1996, at the Sorbonne in Paris, leading broadcast management and organization classes while also shepherding faculty members and students through his work with the NATPE Educational Foundation.

“I’ve taught Vince Manzi, Bob Saget, David Brenner and so many others who’ve gone on to do great work in our business,” Klein says when asked about his passion for education, adding, “It’s definitely not something you do for financial reward, and I enjoy seeing my students succeed.”

When asked about how the industry itself has changed over the past 55 years, Klein responds without hesitation: “The thing that has impressed me the most over the last 55 years that I’ve been involved in television is the technical advancements that I’ve witnessed. I’ve seen satellite, cable, videotape, the miniaturization of cameras that enable coverage almost anyplace in the world at any time. To me, the greatest advancement has come through technology.”

Over that same period, says Klein, the greatest change with NATPE is the organization’s effort to be so inclusive. “When NATPE began it was just program directors of local television stations. Not even the networks participated. And now, we have so many different lines of occupations that are involved in one way or another in the communications business. Some of this goes to technology as well, what with the advent of the Internet and mobile and the means of distributing programming and reaching people. The fact that we expanded to include cable and new media and we’ve expanded beyond program directors to include general managers, attorneys, finance people, advertisers, webmasters and others. NATPE is flexible enough and open-minded enough that it has taken in and hopes to serve people involved in so much of the communications industry, not just local television. Over the years, that’s been the biggest difference.”

Continues Klein: “It’s made NATPE very competitive and in many ways, it’s made it more difficult to be successful within our industry. Time was that local TV stations and then the networks had such a big share of the audience just by being there. Now, audiences are so much more fractionalized and so many more sources are available to the audience for whatever type of programming they want. It’s changed our industry, made it a more competitive business, but it also better serves the public because they have so many more choices now.”

As in any business, there are cycles in the television industry. Says Klein: “Some times are more difficult than others. There are times when business is good and then business is not so good. There are all kinds of regulatory influences that come from the FCC. But the real message is, if you really love this business – and I think you have to in order to be in it – just stay with it, continue to enjoy the good days and ride with the bad ones. Realize that there’s so much satisfaction in being part of a global communications opportunity and the power that it has to influence people around the world. Look for opportunities that may be unknown.”

Looking forward, Klein advises new executives to have a passion for the business. “They have got to be highly self-motivated because it is a very competitive industry. They should also keep their options open. There’s no way of knowing exactly what this business is going to be like five years from now, even two years from now. If they’re interested in communications – it can’t just be a narrow-focused interest in traditional television – they’ve got to have an open mind, keep their options open as to whatever direction this business eventually goes toward, and they’ve got to accommodate themselves to fit into whatever that future landscape looks like.”

NATPE - National Association of Television Program Executives

NATPE Mentor, July '08

NATPE Mentor: Stephen J. Cannell

NATPE Mentor: Peter Roth

NATPE Mentor: Lew Klein