Ynon Kreiz

October 2008

Ynon Kreiz distinguished himself early in his career as chairman and CEO of Fox Kids Europe (now Jetix Europe), a channel he founded with Haim Saban in 1996. While taking the service to 56 countries in 17 languages across Europe and the Middle East, Kreiz learned the value of brands and the power of hit shows.

He then moved into the world of finance and was a general partner at Balderton Capital, a leading venture-capital firm, where he served on the boards of Setanta Sports and Codemasters.

Earlier this year, when Endemol was looking for someone to take over from interim CEO Aat Schouwenaar, the board chose Kreiz. Endemol’s shareholders—investors Goldman Sachs Capital Partners; Mediacinco, a joint venture of Italy’s Mediaset and Spain’s Telecinco; and Cyrte Investments—were impressed by Kreiz’s experience in both commercial television and as an investor.

Endemol is one of the world’s leading producers of scripted and nonscripted entertainment formats, notably Big Brother, Deal or No Deal and the recent hit Wipeout, and it has facilities in more than 20 countries on five continents. Kreiz is tasked with guiding Endemol as it furthers its transition from a TV production company to a content provider for the multimedia world.

TV FORMATS: What attracted you to Endemol?

KREIZ: Endemol is one of the most exciting media companies in our industry. I was attracted to this opportunity to be part of the second growth phase of the company.

TV FORMATS: As an incoming CEO, do you see any areas of the company that need improvement?

KREIZ: The company is in very good shape. It’s been a public company twice. It’s been well managed. The people are very good. As an incoming CEO, the first thing I noticed is the caliber and quality of the people, and secondly, for the size that it is, the company is actually very entrepreneurial, which is good. It is quick, it is adaptive, it is reactive, it is proactive. It’s still very much a pioneer and a front-runner in almost everything that it does. It is very exciting to be part of that.

TV FORMATS: During your career you have had experience both in the world of finance and in the world of commercial television. What unique perspective do you bring to your position at Endemol?

KREIZ: As an investor, I had the opportunity to learn, look at and analyze many different media companies, different economic models and businesses. So that gave me a good, wide perspective on the industry as a whole and where the opportunities for Endemol’s growth are.

TV FORMATS: What are some of the challenges involved in managing a company that has to deliver ideas and creativity?

KREIZ: The challenge is to be able to continue to come up with new ideas, new shows and new hits, attract creative talent, retain people and continue to motivate them and give them a platform of creativity where they can invent the next big thing. The challenge is that there is no formula to do that—there is no magic potion. It’s about people, it’s about ideas, but more importantly, it’s also about implementing ideas. It’s one thing to come up with an idea, it’s another thing to actually turn it into a hit show.

TV FORMATS: In what areas of the company do you see the most growth?

KREIZ: There are several areas we are looking at. Endemol is the largest production company in the world. Last year we produced more than 36,000 hours of programming. This year it will be more. It’s already very large and very successful. The first priority is to continue to grow our core business, but we are also looking at several opportunities to grow the company beyond what we have got today. I cannot be specific about these activities, but I hope to be able to share those with you soon.

TV FORMATS: What did you learn from your experience at Fox Kids Europe about building brands that you can now apply to a company like Endemol?

KREIZ: There are quite a few similarities between Fox Kids Europe [Jetix Europe] and Endemol. Both companies are large global organizations with local operating companies on the ground in many countries. So the challenge is how you maintain this global approach where you can benefit from scale size and large opportunities, but at the same time continue to take advantage of the local opportunities. That combination was the strength that we had at Fox Kids and which on a much larger scale we have at Endemol.

TV FORMATS: Are you involved in the greenlighting process? And when your creative team comes up with an idea, what elements does a format need in order to get the go-ahead?

KREIZ: Our shows are really produced locally and are tailor-made for our broadcasting partners. Every process varies by country, by broadcaster, by budget and by the complexity of the production. The reality is that there are hundreds of ideas out there that we process every year, and only some of them actually make it to the television screen. Typically, a broadcaster would launch five or six big new shows a year, so we try to aim high in order to make the cut. It’s also fair to say that at Endemol the bar is always very high. We cannot just come up with ordinary shows. People expect us to deliver hits, to deliver the big tentpole programs, so we try to step up to that challenge.

TV FORMATS: Other companies in the format business claim that they constantly have many formats in the pipeline. Do you need a certain critical mass in order for some to rise to the top?

KREIZ: I think it’s probably true that you need to have a large pipeline because only some of what you have will turn into hits. But we definitely are not taking a shotgun approach. Although it’s important to have a large variety, we are actually trying to be very careful about picking the formats that are most likely to work, that will travel and have legs to be successful. So it has to be quality over quantity.

In our position we cannot afford to have just random average shows out there. We try to make every one of our shows successful. We have 16 creative teams all over the world—these are full-size teams with a team leader—and a whole creative process that generates formats, ideas and new shows. And that by itself, by the sheer size of it, creates a lot of ideas, a lot of material. And hopefully some of those ideas will become successful.

TV FORMATS: What is your vision for Endemol two years down the road?

KREIZ: We have a very exciting opportunity to grow the company, leverage our global platform and build an exciting company that does a lot more than what it does today. I can’t be specific. We are working on several plans right now. You will see us growing in several new directions.

TV FORMATS: What do you enjoy the most about the many challenges that you face?

KREIZ: I would say working with the people here and aiming high. What I said earlier I cannot emphasize enough. The quality of the team here is extremely high; the people are the best at what they do on a global stage. It’s exciting to come to work and interact with this talent and try to build something that will be a global success.

TV FORMATS: What role do digital media play in establishing a megabrand nowadays?

KREIZ: It’s a huge area for us, one in which we see quite a few exciting opportunities. Big Brother generated more than 130 million votes in 2007. The number of global page views of official Big Brother websites exceeded 2.5 billion in 2007 with more than 300 million online video views in the last 12 months. Big Brother is obviously a megahit, but it just shows you what happens when you have a successful show. The numbers are quite large, and this is a big opportunity for us.

TV FORMATS: What business models do you see in new media that can help take a brand beyond the TV screen?

KREIZ: There is no one specific model that we pursue. We are trying many different models. We are in a very good position because most of our shows adapt very well to new media. Deal or No Deal, for example, to date has more than 25 online games. This is one example of a model that has worked very well for us. We are looking to commercialize our assets across multiple platforms.

TV FORMATS: How important is it to know how to refresh and reenergize the properties you already have?

KREIZ: Refreshing a brand is vital. We are very focused on that, and it’s something that our local production teams do series by series in conjunction with the broadcasters. 1 vs 100. is actually a good example of how we manage to refresh a brand. The show was invented in the Netherlands more than ten years ago, but we continually reinvented it and it’s broadcasting in more than 20 countries. Most broadcasters add their own tweaks and variations, but always stick to the original format. This is something we do as part of our day-to-day activities.

TV FORMATS: Wipeout has been extraordinarily successful here in the U.S. What kind of potential do you see for Wipeout, even beyond what Big Brother or Deal or No Deal have done?

KREIZ: It’s too early to tell, I don’t want to overpromise, but so far it’s had a great start. The ratings in America speak for themselves. It was the number one show in the 18-to-49 demographic during the summer. It delivered around 10 million viewers a night, which is more than double ABC’s July Sweeps average of 4.6 million. The U.S. version is already the number one Tuesday night show in Australia. So far we have sold it to 18 countries. It will be on the BBC as well as broadcasters all over the world—Spain, Germany, Australia, Turkey, Israel and so forth. And it has been recommissioned by ABC for next year. It looks good. It’s a fast, smart show. It has very high production values. One of the interesting points about this show is that it probably would have been too expensive for any one of the countries outside the U.S. to produce on their own. But because of our global scale, we were able to build a huge set in Argentina, and we are flying all the participants from all over the world to our location there. And with that we are able to reduce the cost dramatically for our broadcasters. None of them would have been able to pay for it themselves. By centralizing the production and sharing those resources we’ve been able to make it affordable without compromising the production quality.

TV FORMATS: If a format is not that big a hit, is it still worth the effort of marketing and promoting it, or do you prefer concentrating on the big shows?

KREIZ: It’s not an exact science. We make a lot of shows, not just the big giant tentpoles. Last year we produced more than 500 different shows in almost 60 countries. We actually do a lot more than the very big shows. Some of them are only made by the Endemol teams in the different countries for the local broadcasters. Others travel to just a few countries, while some of the shows surface and rise above the others to become global hits. When we start the process, we never know how strong the show will be and we make decisions about the shows on a case-by-case basis. There are a lot of titles out there that people don’t hear about that we make, and some of them do become big hits.