MGM chief says James Bond movies will never appear online

MGM has just launched another stand-alone film channel, this time in Slovenia, and struck a major exclusive distribution deal withy SBS Broadcasting. Rapid TV News sat down with Gary Marenzi, president of MGM Worldwide Television. We talked about the current recession, HDTV, James Bond and the value of the wonderful MGM library - reports RapidTVNews.

Marenzi said: “We’ve been through recessions and currency devaluations before. It’s not new. But we’ve never been in such a global recession all at once. But it is worth remembering that the Dollar has been weak these past few years and broadcasters have taken advantage of that. Now the situation is more or less reversed and the Dollar is getting a little stronger in most markets the buyers try to use that for their advantage. We have to take the good times with the bad, and so do our customers. If relief is warranted, and sometimes it is, then we tend to expect a commitment on the back end (of a deal). We like people who honour their deals. But when you talk to someone in Russia and we know they are paying us in Dollars that are costing much more than it was a year ago, then we are sympathetic. We may choose to do less business because of that, or we may even do more but on the understanding that when good times come back we’ll recover on the back-end, or we may just sit (the recession) out.”

“The good news is that this recession is hurting badly only in a handful of territories, like South Korea, Spain, and even the UK which is suffering but we find that prices are holding up pretty well. We have to just deal with it. It isn’t all bad news. France, Germany, in fact most of Europe except Russia, and most of South America except Argentina, most of Asia except Korea, business is still good and we’re hanging in OK. It’s fair to say that some people are really freaked and think the business is falling of a cliff. Others, like us, are being prudent and saying ‘instead of a 3-year deal, let’s sign for 1 year and look at the situation a year from now.’“

Marenzi said MGM is in a lot better shape than many of its distribution colleagues “because we have on-going relationships with just about every major TV station in the world. We know the rhythm of their business, we know how they pay and we’ve seen them through good times and bad for decades. We are much more comfortable, and if they want a 6-month package until they get better visibility, then that’s what we’ll do.”

MGM has a global TV hit with its Stargate series (and the Stargate Atlantis spin-off, and now Stargate Universe show). “People really want 1-hour series. We’re delivering with Stargate Universe, with Robert Carlyle, and we have some interesting co-productions in the pipeline. As far as feature films are concerned they very much drive our market. We’re in a good place because we don’t have an over-abundance of product but enough to drive good business in our direction. Some of the bigger studios have arguably too much new product which usually means the bottom end of it will be tough to move. And some of the independent studios have little or no new product to offer, except for ‘B’ movies and they’re impossible to shift.”

Marenzi is a huge fan of HDTV, and said the studio is also looking at the possible impact of 3D. “HDTV is fantastic, and is proving to be a great driver for our business. You are seeing a lot of HD channels launching, and broadcasters upgrading to HD. In most markets we can charge a premium for HD. We did the ‘Bond in HD’ series for BSkyB recently, and couldn’t be happier with the result. HD is going all over the world, and the same with TiVo and DVR devices which are all over the place. But there’s plenty of room for expansion. Outside of the US and UK, and a little in Australia, the rest of the world doesn’t know what a TiVo DVR is! They don’t know how much it changes your life. I look at these HD-equipped DVRs and ‘on demand’ content, and ‘push on demand’ systems, and even EPGs all of which are in their nascent stage, at least for most of the planet. And it gives me cheer, because I know we will have good times, and perhaps bad times, currencies will be up and then down, but this industry is going to have some runway to growth, the trends are firm and it is exciting.”

MGM Television is just releasing ‘Quantum of Solace’ to TV, and the Bond franchise has been good to MGM. But Marenzi had some bad new for Hulu fans. “James Bond will never be on Hulu. The logic is simple: if the top 1000 titles in my catalogue are still very much in demand by my clients then there’s no way they’re going to appear on YouTube or anything similar. But the other two or three thousand, much deeper titles in the archive, well why not? We should be free to experiment [with new technologies]. Hulu and YouTube, in my view, are for interesting clips and short-form content, and classic shows. We have a channel for American Gladiator on YouTube and it helps extend the franchise, so we are not against it.”

As well as investing in new product (and Tom Cruise’s Valkryie is distributed by MGM), MGM is nothing without its library. “But libraries are only as good as you can deliver. We can deliver it all. Go to another studio and ask them how many movies they have in the library, and they might say 100 or 200, so then ask them how many with an Italian dub, and they might say 20 or so, and so the other 80% or 90% - at least in Italy – are near-worthless unless more cash is invested. But when you look at the MGM library we usually have the Italian dubs, and we usually have the movie in HD. We are investing hugely in high-def to make sure the prints are pristine. Our library is all-important and is a major portion of the on-going process. The good news is that there are now more [release] Windows to help pay for this work, and partners who are prepared to invest with us in the task. I look at where this ship is going and I think ‘Wow’, it is so exciting!”

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