Warner Bros. Chief Adjusting to the Spotlight

On the Saturday before he took the reins at Warner Bros. last October, Barry Meyer drove to the studio’s Burbank headquarters as he had thousands of times before in his 29-year career there.

Alone, he took a morning walk around the legendary back lot. Now chairman and chief executive, Meyer wanted to reflect on the enormous task at hand. He was inheriting a $7-billion operation that his beloved predecessors Bob Daly and Terry Semel had run for nearly two decades. He was about to step out from the shadow of his low-profile job as chief operating officer and into the spotlight Daly and Semel had shared only with each other.

Meyer, 56, who joined Warner in 1971, had been the quintessential industry insider focused primarily on the details of the studio’s television deals. In 1995, Meyer helped engineer the partnership between Warner and Tribune Co. (Tribune is buying the Los Angeles Times) to launch the WB and has remained deeply involved in the network.

A lawyer by training, he is a highly guarded, button-down executive who is well known among his peers and on Wall Street but unknown to most of Hollywood.

In an interview in his new office, formerly Daly’s expansive suite, Meyer admits he’s still not comfortable in his new public role. Six months after his promotion, he is clearly struggling with the transition. He faces a number of challenges overseeing Warner’s television and motion picture production businesses as well as the WB Network.

Warner’s TV production operation is coming off one of the most profitable periods in the studio’s history with the success of such shows as “ER,” “Friends” and “Drew Carey.”

That performance will be difficult to match. Not only are the new crop of Warner shows not as popular--though some like “West Wing” are promising--but the market for television programming is changing. Increasingly, networks are creating their own shows, leaving fewer time slots for outside suppliers like Warner Bros.

At the same time, Warner’s own network, the WB, hasn’t exactly picked up the slack. One of his biggest challenges is to grow the viewership of the WB so the studio won’t be as dependent on the major networks as outlets for its programs. At this point, it’s more profitable for Warner to make TV shows for the major broadcast networks, because their broader viewership translates into higher profits.

On the movie side, Meyer must make sure Warner returns to the dominant position it held in the industry for decades. Toward the end of Daly and Semel’s wildly successful reign, the studio suffered an awful downturn at the box office with such expensive miscalculations as “Father’s Day,” “The Postman” and “Message in a Bottle”

Meyer, a Bronx native, is more news junkie than movie buff, watching CNN or CNBC and listening to all-news radio in his car, though he still considers himself a big cinema fan. His favorite movie is “The Godfather, Part II,” and he’s quick to point out the serendipitous trivia that Warner Bros.’ 1943 classic “Casablanca” was released the same year he was born.

Q: Why did you come here that Saturday?

A: I’ve been here for a long time and have walked around the studio a lot over a lot of years, but I never walked around the studio as the person leading the studio. I wanted to do it in a quiet time when nothing else was happening. It was nostalgic.

Q: You’ve always kept a very low profile. How comfortable are you with having a more visible role?

A: I won’t pretend that it’s easy for me, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with it because it’s part of my job, part of what’s expected of me. When Bob and Terry left, two leaders left. The role of being the leader of a company is a role I’m trying to get used to.

Q: How much time do you now spend focusing on television?

A: Television is a big and critical part of our company so I do spend time on it, but I’m trying to wean myself--and it’s difficult--off of the more day-to-day decision making.

Q: And how directly involved are you on the movie side?

A: That is the flip side of weaning. I’m trying to get my own experience curve up on movies, trying to get myself up to speed. One of the good things that has happened to me on this job is Alan Horn [recently named Warner Bros. president]. I’ve known him for many years, but I had never worked with him on a day-to-day basis until now.

Q: What direct effect will the America Online merger have on the studio?

A: The first thing you think about is how you leverage that unbelievable infrastructure they have. You don’t have to build redundant systems. You’re really dealing with one common technological infrastructure that services multiple brands--AOL brands, Turner brands, Time Warner brands, Time Inc. brands and Warner Bros. brands. That’s a clear goal.

Q: Given the Viacom-CBS merger, is it enough to have the WB, or would it make more sense to try and link up with NBC?

A: I don’t want to comment on an NBC thing. But our rationale for the WB was as a safety net. We were able to live very well as a production company in a world where all the networks bought the best programming regardless of ownership. We were worried that that world might change and we thought we needed some form of net both for our children’s animated programming and prime-time programming.

Q: It hasn’t quite turned out that way.

A: We never thought that we would be the sole provider of programming for the WB.

Q: But, the truth is, a lot of your shows are supplied by other producers.

A: Partly that was because the process was completely open--it needed to be. We have partners in the WB, including the Tribune Co. and including Jamie Kellner. There was a disconnect for a while between the production company and the network that doesn’t exist now.

Q: A disconnect?

A: I think there was a creative disconnect. They weren’t thinking of programming in the same way. The WB was looking at specific niche programming that Warner Bros. television was not at that time looking at.

Q: It’s well-known that [Time Warner Vice Chairman] Ted Turner was never a fan of the WB.

A: I think that’s more history than it is current. Ted’s a major shareholder of Time Warner and a board member and I think Ted now recognizes the value of the WB.

Q: The WB is going through a tough period?

A: Well, the ratings this year are off. I think everybody underestimated the hit we’d take going off of WGN [a Chicago superstation that is no longer a WB station]. We lost millions of viewers when we clicked off WGN. It’s going to take us a year or two to grow through that problem.

Q: WGN aside, your shows this year haven’t fared well in the ratings.

A: I think some of it was a programming issue as well as scheduling.

Q: Are you not concerned that none of your new shows have broken through?

A: I don’t think anything has broken through like “Dawson’s” or “Buffy,” but I think there are some shows that everybody thinks have potential. “Angel” is growing and everybody still has confidence in “Roswell” and “Jack and Jill.”

Q: How tough is it to compete in a market when a supplier like Fox is demanding such high prices for a show like “Buffy?”

A: “Buffy” is a valuable show for Fox. On the other hand, “Buffy” is uniquely suited for the WB. No matter what, the WB can’t afford to pay the kind of prices for programming right now that the other guys do because they don’t have as broad a base. We had our first profitable quarter last quarter, so my fondest hope is that a number of years from now, we can afford to pay what the other guys do.

Q: What aspects of the movie business are you involved in?

A: The rule of thumb that Alan and I have developed is that when he and [production chief] Lorenzo [DiBonaventura] get a project they think is ripening quickly, they send it to me just so that I’m aware of the things they’re beginning to think about.

Q: No matter if it cost $10 million or $90 million?

A: No. We have not created any artificial cutoff based on what the budget is. The basic decision about what movies we make and how they get cast is with Alan. We sit down regularly and talk about how much money we’re spending a year making movies, what the slate is going to look like, how many movies we have an appetite for and what our partnership arrangements are.

Q: And, where does your responsibility come in?

A: I’m responsible for delivering a financial performance on that slate of movies to my bosses at Time Warner.

Q: How big a disappointment was it that Steven Spielberg passed on directing your movie franchise “Harry Potter”?

A: If you asked anybody who the ideal director would be for “Harry Potter,” I think the answer would be just about unanimous. And we certainly felt the same way. So to that extent it was a disappointment. [“Home Alone” director Christopher Columbus has since been selected.]

Q: Given the spiraling costs of production and marketing, Warner, like other studios, looks to lay off as much risk as possible on your movies. Do you expect to make additional co-financing deals beyond those you have with companies like Bel Air, Village Roadshow, Franchise Pictures and Alcon?

A: We have a good group of partnerships that help us finance and develop films, some of which we inherited, some of which we expanded under our new regime. We’re looking at everything. But at some point you have capacity issues.

Q: Do you now go to movie premieres?

A: Sure. I did before. But I’m sitting in a different seat now. I get a better seat. I moved up a row or two.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Meyer’s Challenges

* Warner Bros. TV: Produce new hits like “ER,” “Friends” and “The Drew Carey Show.”

*4 WB network: Produce a hit comedy series to match the success of its drama shows “Dawson’s Creek,” “Seventh Heaven” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

* Films: Return to being a consistent hit maker with profitable films like “The Matrix,” which grossed more than $450 million worldwide.

* New media: Take advantage of America Online’s infrastructure to build an e-commerce business.

* Consumer products: Refresh Warner Bros. classic product line and introduce new franchises.

Television Viewership

*--*

‘99-’00 Pct. chg. Season from ‘98-’99 Network (in millions) season ABC 14.4 +19% CBS 12.5 -4 NBC 12.4 -2 FOX 9.1 -17 UPN 3.9 +42 WB* 3.7 -18

*--*

Note: Figures are for prime-time viewing.

* The WB remains No. 1 among female teens for the third year.