Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer implores media giants to play nice
Lions Gate Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer is urging people in the media industry to play nice with each other.
In a speech Monday to cable industry executives in Orlando, Fla., Feltheimeier warned that while “the marriage of content, technology and choice offers an unprecedented experience of our consumers,” all that will be wasted if big media companies can’t get along.
“We can screw it up when all the constituents in our business are so focused on their narrow agendas that they can’t work together to look at the big picture,” Feltheimer said at the Cable & Telecommunications Assn. for Marketing conference.
Citing recent fights between programmers and distributors including Dish Network and AMC and Viacom and DirecTV as well as concern over new platforms such as Aereo, Feltheimer said: “What we need to do is look for ways to work together to make our jobs easier, not compete in ways that make them even harder.”
This is crucial, Feltheimer said, because as consumers migrate to new products to receive content, it will become more vital to keep them connected to the current pipeline.
“Nobody has to tell you that once a consumer has left your ecosystem it’s very hard to get them back,” Feltheimer said.
Television shows produced by Lions Gate include the AMC hit “Mad Men” and the FX comedy “Anger Management.”
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Follow Joe Flint on Twitter @JBFlint.
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