Relaxed Fit : MCA’s Complementary Duo Maps Out Its Plans
MCA Chairman and Chief Executive Frank J. Biondi Jr. and company President Ron Meyer aren’t exactly the odd couple. Still, it doesn’t take long in their presence to see East meet West.
Over lunch in MCA’s executive commissary, former agent-to-the-stars Meyer nibbles on a Cobb salad and drinks bottled water, while veteran New York executive Biondi chows down on a turkey sandwich and fries, washed down by a Diet Coke. Meyer wears a white shirt buttoned to the top, no tie, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and khaki pants. Biondi dons a suit, tie and cuff links worn with a monogrammed white shirt.
Biondi mentions that next month he’ll mingle at Wall Street investment banker Herbert Allen Jr.’s annual power retreat for media, entertainment and high-tech executives in Sun Valley, Idaho. What will Meyer be doing? He’ll escort Arnold Schwarzenegger to Universal Studios Florida for the opening of the T2-3D attraction based on the star’s hit movie “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”
Seagram Co. Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. could hardly have picked two more different executives to oversee the beverage and spirits giant’s $5.7-billion investment into the next century. The 51-year-old Meyer, a high school dropout and ex-Marine from West Los Angeles, worked his way from a mail room job to the top of the agency world, where he handled the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.
Biondi, also 51, comes with an Ivy League-loaded resume (a bachelor’s from Princeton University and a Harvard MBA) along with a wealth of corporate experience as chief executive of Viacom, and other senior jobs at Home Box Office, Coca-Cola’s entertainment sector and the Children’s Television Workshop.
Meyer and Biondi are similar in their easygoing manner--neither particularly likes the term “laid-back” that is so often used to describe them--and a belief that neither should overshadow the MCA company and its executive team.
Ten months ago, Meyer left Creative Artists Agency--which he, Michael Ovitz and Bill Haber founded more than 20 years ago--and took the plunge into the corporate side of the business. Reviewing the plans for a new theme park, division budgets and financing deals isn’t the same as advising Moore on her next picture. So he welcomed Biondi’s hiring two months ago.
Biondi was abruptly fired as chief executive of Viacom by Chairman Sumner Redstone in January. Although Biondi doesn’t dwell on the firing, he’s clearly still smarting, recalling vividly the exact time of day--5:30 p.m.--when Redstone dropped the bombshell.
Despite the firing, Biondi enjoys a solid reputation on Wall Street, where some analysts thought Meyer was in over his head running an entertainment conglomerate.
“The idea that Frank is here really makes it all work,” says Meyer, acknowledging he was overwhelmed before Biondi’s arrival. “I was hoping the right person would show. It was impractical for one person to do it. Frank has the skills, the expertise and has done it before.”
Biondi clearly looks to Meyer’s strong relationships with talent to attract Hollywood’s biggest stars and directors. Since joining MCA, Meyer has made talent and production deals with Stallone, Moore, the Zucker brothers, John Singleton, Danny DeVito, Penny Marshall, the producer-director team of Lobell/Bergman and the Hughes brothers.
“Getting Frank was the culmination of building a new management team at MCA,” Bronfman says. “Their skills are so complementary. . . . Ron has done phenomenally well in recruiting managerial and artistic talent and Frank is great at setting business priorities.”
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Meyer’s and Biondi’s responsibilities remain a little vague, which seems by design.
“There’s so much to do every day that I find a lot of things we end up doing together,” such as strategy sessions and budget meetings, says Meyer.
Adds Biondi: “We’ve sort of purposely left it undefined and just told people they’re working for both of us.”
Hollywood sources note a clear contrast between the new regime and the more autocratic rule of MCA’s longtime team of Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg. It’s hard to imagine either man riding around the lot on a bicycle, as Meyer did to introduce himself.
Another symbolic move is a renovation of the studio’s executive commissary. A hierarchal seating arrangement--where top executives sat perched above other workers--will be dismantled for a design that puts everyone on the same level. Still another change: Executive bonuses will be paid for the first time, a standard practice at other companies but unheard-of at MCA because Wasserman and Sheinberg didn’t believe in them.
Some industry pundits wonder whether the seemingly relaxed style of Meyer and Biondi can work. They also wonder if the pair can move beyond fixing MCA’s immediate problems to form a long-term vision. But in a line he’s repeated so often that it’s becoming a mantra, Meyer warns not to “mistake being laid-back for weakness.”
The two are diplomatic about critiquing the previous regime. “This is a company that had the same management for 30 years. A lot of things didn’t change because management was comfortable with the way it was operated,” says Meyer.
Bronfman and Meyer have already gone through a major housecleaning. With the exception of the theme parks and publishing units, every other major division head has been replaced. Doug Morris took over for Al Teller as head of music. Gregory Meidel succeeded TV chief Tom Wertheimer. And MCA veteran Casey Silver moved into Tom Pollock’s post as head of the Motion Picture Group.
“We’re finding ways to synergize this company,” says Meyer. “ . . . We want everybody to be invested in each other.”
Biondi adds: “I’m much more of a delegator. Use good people and get out of their way.”
Whether these remain vague notions or translate into bottom-line profits remains to be seen. Still, rival TV executives say MCA seems to be moving in the right direction of fixing its hit-scarce TV unit, which under Meidel just sold four pilots to the networks for the 1996-97 season (“Something So Right,” “Mr. Rhodes,” “EZ Streets” and “The Burning Zone”). Last month, MCA bought a half-interest in successful producer Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, whose shows include “NewsRadio,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show” and “The Larry Sanders Show.”
What about a network, given that competitors Disney, Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros. all have a link to one?
“I think it’s an open question. We were pleasantly surprised about the number of shows we got on the air, and we don’t own a network,” Biondi says.
He says the same holds true for cable network ownership: “I don’t think you have to own a cable network, but you need access on some basis that’s akin to ownership or very favorable.”
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MCA has held informal discussions with CBS about a strategic alliance. It also has talked with NBC about a possible bid for Castle Rock Entertainment along with a foreign partner, with each owning a third of the struggling company.
MCA’s Universal Pictures is being more aggressive on the movie side, shoring up relationships with creative talent. Historically, the studio has had lower earnings than its competitors, not necessarily for a lack of hits. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment provided most of the studio’s biggest blockbusters, including “Jurassic Park,” but the director has walked off with a huge portion of those profits. Imagine Entertainment, which produced such hits as “Apollo 13,” has been Universal’s other big supplier.
Biondi says he and Meyer are taking a hard look at what’s being spent overall on movies, which he admits is on the high end of the industry average of $700 million to $1 billion.
“We’re trying to figure out how much money we should be investing in film,” he says. “Should we co-finance, should we do 18 titles or 28 titles--this is all coming together.”
Meyer says Universal will focus on “making films of different scopes, sizes and types. You can’t make 18 to 20 star vehicles; the economics are too big.”
Bronfman, who will continue to spend about 40% of his time on this coast and the other 60% in New York, says the key priority right now is “to get priorities internally set for each of our business units and the company as a whole.”
In assessing the first year of Seagram’s MCA ownership, Bronfman says: “We’ve done well, not in terms of results, because that takes a while, but in putting the building blocks in place. The good news is we didn’t overpay for the assets. Now it’s up to all of us to make it work. That’s the exciting part.”
