Greg Ricca

October 2007

Greg Ricca joined Discovery Communications earlier this year when the company’s new president and CEO, David Zaslav, was undertaking a broad restructuring of the group’s operations. Ricca, who spent 20 years at Viacom building the global MTV franchise, was appointed president and CEO of Discovery Networks International. Its channels reach some 781 million total subscribers in more than 170 countries. The key brands include Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, each in more than 200 million homes outside the U.S., and the rapidly growing portfolio of Discovery Lifestyle Networks.

TV DOCS: In the last few months, Discovery has undergone considerable restructuring in the U.S. Has this also occurred within the international division?

RICCA: Since I got here, in mid-February, we’ve participated in our own review of the business and felt that we had to realign it somewhat. The corporate group for international in Silver Spring was conducting a lot of activities that were best left to the people who are actually running the businesses in the various regions around the world.

The new focus has been on programming [the international channels with content] from the core networks here in the U.S., and then commissioning, producing and licensing in the regions, to make sure that the refinements of the local markets are taken into account.

TV DOCS: In what territories are your brands the strongest?

RICCA: EMEA—Europe, the Middle East and Africa—aggregates the strongest scale and is the widest and the fastest-growing region from an economic point of view. Discovery is extremely strong in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and of course it’s a very strong channel in the U.K.

In the PAX [Pan Asia-Pacific Cross Media] Survey in Asia, Discovery Channel has been named the number-one regional cable and satellite channel for the last nine years. In India, we’re the number one international channel in all categories—that includes movies, sports, anything. And a lot of the programming that we have now on Discovery is really resonating with younger viewers and to some extent the same [is true for] Animal Planet as well.

TV DOCS: How are your lifestyle networks performing?

RICCA: We’ve done an extensive rollout of the lifestyle channels led by Discovery Travel & Living. We’re looking at that as an opportunity to refine and develop our portfolio. We are going to focus on [attracting more] female viewers, which we’ve been doing, but we need to super serve that category the same way we have done with young men on Discovery. We’re going to focus on our [own] content and also work with TLC in the U.S. to figure out the most effective way to develop programming that will have a high impact internationally and really resonate with women.

TV DOCS: At the international channels, how much of the programming is produced or commissioned locally?

RICCA: There isn’t a rule that can be applied here, but certainly we’ve increased the amount of U.S. network product on Discovery Channel, and we will definitely increase it on the other networks, as well. Upwards of 60 percent or 70 percent of the budget is focused on major product that is produced in the U.S. I think it’s really key, though, that we talk about this in the right terms. A vast part of the programming that is made for the U.S. networks is developed and produced outside of the U.S. The locales are global, a lot of the production companies and producers are from all around the world—the content is global even though it’s centrally done. We’ll certainly continue to develop programming in our regional operations, and that programming will still be critical, because it’s very important [for the individual brands]. Certainly there are programs, even in the factual context, that aren’t going to work everywhere. And there is programming the U.S. develops that the international networks are not going to be interested in. But we are finding that our ability to offer high-impact programming is what distinguishes us from smaller local players. We can’t be indigenous in every market we are in. If we had a hundred channels internationally that we were trying to develop programming for, we couldn’t come near the great quality and the impact that we can have by partnering with our U.S. channels.

Part of the operational change is that the program-sales group has moved into the international management team. As a result, program sales and a lot of the co-financing arrangements are now being managed, controlled and coordinated for the international networks by the international team. So I expect our networks and our team to be very involved with [terrestrial] broadcasters. We can develop programming with them, offer them an opportunity to participate with us in programming and [license them product] that we produce.

TV DOCS: Are there plans to launch new brands internationally?

RICCA: In terms of brands, the biggest initiative, and we’re just at the beginning but we’re going to see this as a model going forward, is DMAX in Germany. DMAX was a change in direction for the company, and, I think, a very good one. Traditionally, our international business was very focused on subscriber-fee-based television. And [the goal with] DMAX was to take advantage of the very broad cable-television markets that are not fee-based. We find that it’s complementary [to our business], and it’s really resonating with audiences. We’ve increased distribution and we hit the threshold of 80 percent. Our ratings are now at a level where we have a good household share of males.

We have a vehicle with DMAX and we’re going to expand its presence. We’re looking at Eastern Europe and perhaps Turkey and the Middle East in order to expand our presence in the broad-based advertising market.

We’re looking at refining some of our brands—there are a few smaller brands that are not consistent [with our portfolio]—but I don’t see us launching another new distribution network in the foreseeable future.