CABS, LIMOS, AND EGOS IN LAS VEGAS

At television's biggest conference, a $5 cab ride turned into a $200 fiasco

For decades the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) conference was television’s biggest annual sales fest, where studios, production companies and distributors would sell their newest (and even oldest) programs to broadcasters from across the US and internationally.

My job was to oversee the marketing efforts including the trade advertising, celebrity appearances, exhibit space, hotel rooms, dinners and even an occasional party or golf tournament for the distribution companies I worked for.

By the mid-1990’s my company, Genesis Entertainment, where the company’s reputation for squeezing the most marketing and operation bang for the buck had merged with New World Entertainment, where the international television sales operation operated as if they were still the former movie studio with its prodigal budgets. Thus was born New World/Genesis Distribution and its split personality in more than just budgeting. The two company’s had completely different operating cultures.

While my brain was telling me to be thrifty and wise in planning our return to the conference in Las Vegas, exhortations from our profligate coworkers on the other side of the office were in the “spend, spend, spend” mode.

January 1996 brought my tenth annual NATPE conference and the biggest one I’d ever set up, a 12,000 square foot exhibit with 36 screening rooms that cost $750,000 to construct, hotel rooms for 100 employees and a golf tournament at TPC Summerlin for dozens of our most important clients.  The company invested over $1,000,000 in one week alone to sell our shows to television stations across the US and around the world, including the launches of “Access Hollywood,” Stephen J. Cannell’s “Two” and “Loveline,” as well as returning series “Real Stories of the Highway Patrol” and “Tales from the Crypt.”

Celebrating the launch of “Access Hollywood” in the New World/Genesis booth (above, l to r), John Rohrback, Jim van Messell, Brandon Tartikoff, Giselle Fernandez, Art Bilger, Rick Ungar, Wayne Lepoff

To match the growing budgets of our big splash in Las Vegas was the growing egos of those, mostly on the creative side, whose self-importance was only exceeded by their chutzpah.

I’d seen this play out over many years in the business.  Television producers and stars of shows not yet on the air, well before they’d become household names, would join us at the conference, meet potential buyers in our booth during the day and hang out with the staff at dinners or breakfasts like one of the team.  Then, a year later, with their shows on the air and egos understandably inflated, their regular hotel room of the year before now needed to be a suite.  The cabs they took around town had to be limos, and their airline tickets to the conference had to be first class.

 Never was this more apparent, or producers and stars more coddled, than in 1996.

From my Journal, January 21, 1996:

            Las Vegas pre-NATPE.  More booth set-up on the convention floor and salesmen handholding back at the Mirage.  I ran back and forth between booth and hotel until 5pm, when the anticipated ego issues started to arise.

            Met Rick Unger (producer of the animated series “Biker Mice from Mars”) in the Mirage lobby before we were to head over to the MGM Grand a few blocks away for dinner.  When he said he wanted a ride over, I thought “okay, what the hell, a five-dollar cab ride across the street.” But Rick, complaining about the “cab situation,” wanted a limo instead!  We walked out front…empty cabs lined up with no one else out there, but I quickly learned that the “cab situation” wasn’t about cabs at all.

            It turned out that Scott Stone & David Stanley, producers of “Loveline,” had been given a limo (not of my doing…New World took care of that without my knowledge), and if they had a limo, Rick wanted one too.  And he was being very insistent.  I’m not a person to raise my voice, but I came very close and almost called him out for being the prima donna he was acting like.

            Called up to Wayne (my boss, Wayne Lepoff), who came down to the lobby to sort this out.  In the end, that five-dollar ride became a $200 limo rental.

As I found out later, my kiss-ass counterparts at New World (on the marketing side) were even more eager to provide limos than I was to refuse them.

January 22, 1996:

            One of the things that got me steamed just after the New World dinner was the limo situation which I first mentioned yesterday.  I told (New World publicist) Harry Anderson that it was out of hand…that a group of New World execs wanted a limo to take them from the Mirage to Caesar’s Palace…right next door!  It’s ridiculous!  Harry told me that if these guys wanted limos, we had to provide them.

            “It’s coming out of your budget, so live with it!” Harry told me.

            I brought it up later with Art Bilger (the highest-ranking executive overseeing both Genesis and New World) and, fed up, told him what was going on…he had had no idea, and told me to be firm --- limos are for talent only.  Music to my ears.

The limo situation was settled, but the drama continued throughout the conference in mostly minor ways.  It would boil over again a few months later, however, in a major way, with the launch of “Access Hollywood,” for which I oversaw the promotion.  That’s a story for a future column.

One other recollection of NATPE 1996 that wasn’t about money, but certainly about one man’s ego, occurred on the second night of the conference at a dinner for all our staff, producers, stars, and clients.

January 24, 1996:

            NATPE DAY #2.  Technically, everything ran smoothly in the booth today.  Unfortunately, this was one of my worst days because from the moment I arrived at the booth until the moment I left, I had a seating chart for tonight’s dinner in my hand to which I was constantly making revisions, additions, deletions.  All the other normal things I have to do at NATPE…coddle stars, have meetings, put out fires, make sure the aisle tape keeps running…kept on happening, but I kept having to return to the seating chart.  My staff went over to the club where our dinner was scheduled in the mid-afternoon…by the time I got there at 7:00 they were still writing name tags with table assignments and still making revisions which I’d called in hours earlier.  I was horrified when I did get there because they were not yet fully set up, and the decorations in front which had been promised were very much below my expectations.  However, when people did start arriving it was very orderly and there were no surprises.  Unlike last night, not one surprise guest.  There were plenty of no-shows, and lots of seat-shuffling once everyone was seated.  The food was nothing great.

            I started the program at 8:20 because I promised to make amends for last night’s marathon (the principals from “Access Hollywood” had spoken seemingly endlessly and our guests were visibly uncomfortable the night before). 

            I introduced Wayne, who introduced Brandon Tartikoff, who introduced everyone else involved in our new shows.  I’d asked each of them to stick to between one and two minutes, which (“Real Stories of the Highway Patrol” producer) Mark Massari, the first up, graciously did, and Mark Walberg in the second position did as well.  But then came (“Access Hollywood” Executive Producer) Jim van Messel, who slowly and deliberately went on and on for more than ten minutes before introducing the show’s host, Giselle Fernandez.  About eight minutes into Jim’s rambling, droning prattle, I whispered to Giselle to please be brief (as she’d told me she wanted it to be!).  That was prompted by an Ed Wasserman aside to me that his clients were restless.  I then told Scott Stone and Steve Cannell the same thing…that I swore I’d asked Van Messel to keep it to one minute.

            Well, Giselle’s’ first remark to the 130 assembled guest was “how come all these men go on and on and when I finally get up, Doug Friedman tells me to ‘make it quick?’”  Chuckle chuckle chuckle.  Very funny, and I knew that the laughing group was looking at me.  So then, I return to Scott Stone, and said “please don’t mention my name.”

            Then, after Scott and David were introduced, Scott starts off with “I was told to be quick, but not to mention the name of the person who told me.”  More yucks from the group.  David Stanley followed with yet another comment about me, and I’d suddenly become the butt of a running joke.

            The best, however, was Stephen Cannell, my friend of almost ten years, who was the final speaker and opened with “That’s funny; Doug told me to stretch.”

The evening ended up on a high for all involved, and my staff received kudos for pulling off another great event during our “million-dollar week.” 

The lobby of our 12,000 square foot booth (above).

New World/Genesis was sold to Fox six months later, almost all the company’s 300 employees were let go, and I’d never have another NATPE conference like that again.  Looking back at my journal entries from that crazy week and the colossal egos I had to deal with, I was probably better off!

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