Neil Braun

World Screen Weekly, January 18, 2007

Neil Braun

President of Distribution and Marketing

Starz Media

Born in New York City, Neil Braun is a New Yorker to the core. “Having a New York lifestyle increasingly pushed me toward working in tele�vision as I vacillated between movies and television for 30 years,” says Braun. He started his career as a lawyer; worked in motion-picture financing; moved on to HBO; then to Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s company; and was then hired at Viacom. “I ran Viacom Entertainment, the TV production and distribution business, and when Viacom bought Paramount and wanted me to move to L.A., I left and became president of the NBC television network,” he continues.

In the late ’90s, Braun started up two Internet companies, but ran out of capital when the dot-com bubble burst. He then set up Vanguard Animation and got equity financing from IDT Entertainment. “A few years later, IDT asked me if I would become an executive for them, which I did.” IDT Entertainment was acquired by Liberty Media and integrated into Starz in the fall of 2006.

Today, Braun is the president of distribution and marketing at Starz Media, which includes the Film Roman, Anchor Bay Entertainment and Manga Entertainment brands. “We are growing the business by our own production and distribution,” says Braun. “I spend most of my time finding opportunities to produce television in economic models that make sense in today’s marketplace. We approach the tele�vision business as an executive producer would. We bring creative producers together with network buyers and then we put in place financing and a production team so that we can control what the economic model of the [project] is. It has always taken great creativity to do the financial part of an entertainment product, but in today’s fragmented world it takes greater creativity. And that’s the value we are trying to bring to the table. I’ve got a small team of very experienced people who have a track record of [financing and producing] for today’s environment—that’s a highly valued skill set.”

Starz Media produces the Masters of Horror series for Showtime and Masters of Science Fiction for ABC. “One of the interesting shows we will talk to people at NATPE about is Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, that airs on Nickelodeon,” says Braun. “It’s aimed at preschoolers and is doing extremely well. But preschool is a very different television business than [prime time]. So what we are offering broadcasters around the world is not only the television show, but a turn-key business model that includes licensing and merchandising, online games and animated promotional spots that can be customized for their market.”

Other animated properties from Starz include Me, Eloise, for kids, and the adult-skewing Hellboy.