Exclusive Interview: Starz’s Chris Albrecht

March 22, 2012 World Screen

PREMIUM: Chris Albrecht, the president and CEO of Starz, talks to World Screen Newsflash about his strategy for producing series that will brand the network and attract viewers searching for quality entertainment.

When Chris Albrecht joined Starz LLC as president and CEO in 2010, one of his main priorities was to produce high-end original programming. Having shepherded shows such as The Sopranos and Sex and the City at HBO, he wanted to send a message to the creative community that Starz was open for business.

 

WS: How is Starz positioning itself in the pay-TV market? What opportunities lie between HBO and Showtime?
ALBRECHT: I look at HBO as being the “we’ve got everything” premium television channel: they’ve got movies, big dramas, comedies, late night, documentaries, movies, mini-series. That not only works well for them but it is imperative for them to stay that way because anything else now would be perceived as less than. I look at Showtime as having done a really good job in original programming. They’ve got a lot of quirky shows and now have dramas that are a departure from some of the shows they have done before, certainly Homeland is one of them. They don’t have, however, as big a quantity of first-run theatrical movies.
 
So Starz, which has deals with two studios, Disney and Sony, and has a lot of first-run theatrical movies, is now also entering original programming. For us it’s a chance to augment our brand but also make it seem a little more seamless. Our originals are big, theatrical, quality shows that aren’t trying to be overly realistic, or take a real intimate look at a given world. They are big, fun, crowd pleasers, and provide a little bit of an escape for the audience. We will distinguish ourselves from the other premium channels and at the same time make it a little easier for the audience to understand what Starz is.
 
WS: And the original programming helps brand the channel.
ALBRECHT: For sure, original programming is what helps you to gain some attention, what helps you be unique within the different brands, but I don’t think it’s about any one program, per se. It’s about the whole offering in and of itself—movies are going to be an important part of what we do and the original programming is going to be an important part of what we do, and the two will hopefully go together on Starz in a way that makes us identifiable.
 
WS: You ordered eight episodes of Boss without seeing a pilot. What do you need to see or hear in a pitch that makes you take a risk on something?
ALBRECHT: We did the same thing with Magic City and we are doing the same thing with Da Vinci’s Demons. It’s becoming our model. I sit in a room with the person who is going to be responsible for delivering the show, who is the writer/producer, and we talk about the show. If they have written a script, the conversation and the script have to be consistent. In other words, what the writer tells me the show is about has to be reflected in the script. We sit and talk about the script and the writer can expand on it and the ideas are not only ones that I would never have, but are ones that I say, “Wow, that is such a great idea” and I get excited. I’ve said for a long time, the worst creative meetings are the ones in which I have the best ideas, because I don’t actually do anything other than sit in the meeting.
 
Not producing a pilot is a giant leap and that’s a bit of a learning curve, because you are not able to actually look at the show before you are well down the road. If you are trying to have a consistent dialogue with your creative person, and you have a script, you can talk about it. If you then make a pilot, you can talk about the pilot. You can look at dailies. But if you don’t have a pilot, you don’t really have another chance to talk about the show until you see a cut of the first episode, and by that time, because of the financial necessities of the production, you are probably shooting the third of fourth episode.
 
That real challenge is that we are learning on the go. We are hopefully getting better at it. The most frustrating thing for me as a person, and certainly as an executive, is to make the same mistake multiple times. And when you make a show you have no control; you are relying on the talents of others. So not producing a pilot is definitely a much more adventurous road to take, but it’s one that we are committed to, it’s one that I think is fun and exciting. Certainly it’s an attraction for writers who want to come and talk to us about their shows. It isn’t risky as much as it is a bolder way of approaching it, although to be completely honest, if I had unlimited funds, I would go for a pilot, it’s definitely a hedge.
 
WS: Producing a show requires a certain amount of alchemy more than formula.
ALBRECHT: There is certainly a bit of magic that needs to happen. I think the magic is a function of a lot of talented people coming together at one time. But I do think that a successful, high-quality, long-running series is the hardest thing in show business, because you have to keep making them over and over and over again. There are so many pitfalls that come not only from a creative point of view but also from a business point of view, negotiations, contracts end, people go off and do other things.
 
WS: And as a series gets more successful, there are more challenges, both creative and financial?
ALBRECHT: Right, and in an advertiser-supported model, you can theoretically charge more money for the commercial time. In the premium-television model, there is no way to offset that increase, so the pressure on the show becomes even greater—it better become really, really successful. Again, it depends on how much money you have. Can you afford to keep something on the air because it adds to the network’s image? Can you afford to keep something on because you like it? Can you afford to keep something on because you think it will eventually be worth a lot of money somewhere down the road? The downstream markets for premium television shows have been either international sales or DVD. There have really been only two shows—HBO’s Sex and the City and The Sopranos—that have had any kind of U.S. secondary window. Sex and the City was successful, but The Sopranos was not. Pay-TV shows don’t have the ancillary revenue to offset costs, so it is a problem that is inherent with successful series.
 
WS: If you have international partners, are you able to offset some of that risk?
ALBRECHT: International partners can help offset the risk going in. The trade off is that you’re capping the amount of money you can make from international in most deals. There may be some increases, but if the show is wildly successful, you are not going to get the benefit of that. If Starz were to fully finance a show on its own, we would be taking an additional risk if the show weren’t successful for us, or if we couldn’t sell it internationally. But we are also unfortunately taking the risk that if the show is very successful—we’ll see someone else get a really good deal. Now if you have a partner, that’s not a bad thing, but you are trading off some of the upside. It’s the same thing in the movie business, a lot of U.S. independents pre-sell international rights to get movies made. Yes, you are definitely limiting the downside, but as the international marketplace becomes a bigger part of the final revenue for theatricals, and now for television shows, you are definitely capping your upside.
 
WS: Are there any upcoming originals you want to highlight?
ALBRECHT: We hope that Magic City resonates with our audiences in the U.S. and with international buyers because that is a show that we own all rights to. We’re really hoping that the acclaim for Boss—the Golden Globe nominations and Kelsey Grammer’s win—can make people more aware of that show. The next group of programs that we have announced, Da Vinci’s Demons and Marco Polo, although similar in some ways that people might suppose, are actually similar in some ways that might surprise people, which is this chance to take a look at an iconic figure in world history and bring the audience into a really interesting world in a very fun way that can illuminate and entertain. I hope all of these shows, Magic City included, but certainly Da Vinci’s Demons and Marco Polo, can start to be emblematic of the types of things that people will think of when they think of Starz. One of the great advantages we had at HBO was that after we had put Oz and a couple of other shows on the air, creators thought, “Oh wow! I can do that there!” I think our shows will get the creative community to say, “Oh my God, I’ve got a great idea for Starz! And that will make my job a lot easier, because then there will be people coming in and I’ll have way more stuff than I’ll ever be able to handle! We have a few things in development that are near the decision point that I am hopeful for. If we can get the attention for these shows and be able to continue with a few of them because they are successful, then we will be able to add to them and really have this identifiable, homogenous brand that the audience starts to gravitate towards, not just on a per program basis, but on an overall brand basis.
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