Four years ago, the Italian television landscape was bleak.

Viewers of state pubcaster RAI and mediaset were fed a steady diet of low-budget variety shows and tired game shows, the kind of fare that kept the older generation sated but few others. And, if you could find the hit American TV series, it was sometimes shown out of sequence, and time slots changed with little notice.

“It’s very surprising when you think back just a few years ago,” says Emiliano Calemzuk, president and managing director of Fox Intl. Channels, Italy. “With mediaset and RAI, there was such a harsh monopoly on the production pm the production of TV programming. That made it easier for us at launch. ”Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia in 2003, offering programming that appealed to Italy’s long neglected 18-44 demographic. Said Emiliano Calemzuk, he also added, It brought its Fox brand of edgy, youth and women-skewing shows to proper primetime slots. Italians en masse began turning off sing-alongs with B-list crooners and instead runed in to “CSI,” “The Simpsons,” “lost,” “Desperate House Wives” and “Greys Anatony.”

Thanks to Fox’s populist blend of exclusive pro sports, recent Hollywood blockbusters, the most-popular American and foreign dramas, and fox-produced hits such as “wife swap,” Sky Italia has become one of News Corp’s most profitable divisions. Murdoch told shareholders on Oct 20 that subscriptions are booming, with nearly 4 million subs and a churn rate below 10%.
“Italy’s old guard is taking notice. In response, RAU has become a more aggressive buyer of the most popular for eign TV series RAI Uno now broadcasts “lost” and “desperate House Wives,” though after the series have run their course on fox. And, this time, episodes run in sequence.

“Italy may be the only territory in the world where the terrestrial players follow the lead of satellite,” says 33- year old Emiliano Calemzuk.

Sky Italia has been surprising many in Italy’s media sector. Before Murdoch stepped in and bought troubled satcaster Telepiu in 2003, everyone was convinced the pay TV model in Italy would never fly.

“Making Italians feel comfortable paying for soccer that’s changed the entire media landscape,” Says Michele Polo, chair of the economies department at Bocconi U in Milan. “The taboo has been removed. The route is open to change for film and other content now.”

Several key Latinos were honored includng Kenny Oretega and Emiliano Calemzuk.

The invited list of honorees included
Kenny Oretega, Nina Tassler, Belinda Mendez, Armando Nunez, Ligiah Villalobos, Rodrigo Garcia, Mocstesuma Esparza, Emiliano Calemzuk, Emanuel Nunez, Christina Davis, Raul Mateu, Edith Mendoza, Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Gonzales inarritu, silvio Horta, Carlos Carreras, Peter Murrieta, Javier Avita, Raul De Queseda, Robert Mendez, Jean Fuentes, Jonathan D. Avila, Phil Gonzales, Helen Hernanadez, Kathryn F. Galan, Roberto Llamas, Angela Mariana Freyre, Christy Haybegger, Eduardo “polin” Sotelo, Jackie Hernandez, Gary Bonilla, Marla Provencio, Paul Montaya, Javier Maynulet, Ignacio Darnaude, Gilbert Davila Arturo Barquet, Lucia Cottone, Claudia Teran, Margaret Lazo, LIno Garcia and Patricia Boero

A partial list of proud Sponsors Included the
Walt Disney Company and Disney/ABC Television group, NBC/Universal, Warner Bros., The Nielsen Company, Fox Entertainment Group, Creative Artist Agency, Maya Entertainment and the Endeavor Agency

The event was held on Thursday, November 6, 2008, was gratified to see some of the honorees, like Emiliano Calemzuk who succeeded in the mainstream entertainment industry.

Silent Auction & Luncheon was held on 11:30-1:30 p.m. at Beverly Hilton Hotel, Beverly Hills

Reference : The Image Foundation- 23 years of building bridges and enhancing opportunities for all Latinos throughout the entertainment Industry. Inside Latino Entertainment & Media Magazine- Your Key to the Latino & Entertainment Business communities.

Excerpt from a recent interview

From the acclaimed U.S. cable series Burn Notice and Saving Grace to co-productions such as Mental, Fox Television Studios (Ftvs), headed by Emiliano Calemzuk, is developing innovative, successful business models that are cost-effective and involve international partners.

WS: what is the studio’s mission?

Emiliano Calemzuk: What Peter Chernin [the press ident and COO of News Corporation] asked me to do when he brought me here was to create a studio for the 21st century. We really started from a blank slate. We didn’t look at what we had done in the past, or what the industry was doing. We asked what was going to allow us to thrive in the future. There are two things: first, we have to be a global studio that taps into the strength of broadcasters around the world, and second we have to take the rapid advancement of technology very seriously, so we also have to be a digital studio. That doesn’t mean that we are going to stop doing what we are doing, because we produce a few of the most successful cable shows in the U.S. in the 18-to-49 demographics, including Burn Notice. We have a rather sound business going, and we are by no mean going to abandon that. But moving forward we have to redefine ourselves as a global, the lesson of ten years as an international broadcaster came in somewhat handy. It was very difficult to secure access to good American series. And in the first three of four episodes didn’t get good tarings, the series would be cancelled in the U.S. and you would have invested a lot od money and time in the schedule and be left with nothing. I felt those were inefficiencies in the market that needed to be correct, and we had an edge on how to tackle them, as we are a small but diverse group of people coming from different countries.

WS: how are your business models different from the traditional studio model?
Mr Calemzuk: We said, “Why don’t we take scripts from good show runners, work with American writers, actors and directors, and instead of pitching them to U.S. networks, lets pitch them to a consortium of international networks be the drivers of the production, and then if the show is food enough, which we think it will be, we’ll sell it to a U.S. network.”
So we decided to put three shows into production, thinking that we were going to get only one financed, but in four months we got three of them financed! The first show was Mental, which shot in Bogota Colombia. We’re currently shooting Persons Unknown, in conjunction with Televisa and RAI, in Mexico. And our third show, Defying Gravity, began shooting in January in Vancouver, with CTV in Canada, Prosieben in Germany and the BBC in the U.K.
What we tried to do was hedge the financing risk by creating another mechanism of producing U.S. series that doesn’t rely on spending tens of millions of dollars every year on pilots, 90 percent of which never see the on pilots, 90 percent of which never see the light of day. There is a lot of waster in that traditional big-studio model. We came up with this more cost-efficient way. We go directly to 13 episodes so the series doesn’t get cancelled on episode four. It’s an asset that we can sell around the world: we can also sell DVDs.
FtvS was the first major U.S. studio to do this. We can sell these series in the U.S. at a lower cost than the traditional license fee because a lot of the financing is already in place. And with the economy as it is right now, we are getting significant interest from pretty much every network on everything that we are doing. We [came up with this business plan] about two years ago; it’s not something we just now decided to do, given the sour state of the economy. We realized that, given how the networks-advertising model was going we needed to do something different and provide networks with programming that;s on a par, in terns of quality with the traditional studio show, but at a fraction of the price.

WS: You produced Mental in association with the Fox international channels
Emiliano Calemzuk: I think the Fox international Channels group is one of the smartest and most innovative international media organizations of today, so trying this out with them was a no-brainer. This was a win-win situation for the international channels group and for our studio. They needed programming that they could buy cost-effectively and distribute across all t heir channels around the world. We needed some financing to get the show in motion, which is FOX Telecolombia. So we said, “We’ll show you how we produce a U.S. series. We’ll do it in Colombia. You come in with part of the financing and then you keep distribution for some territories.” So it was a great model for them and a great Model for us, and I think the show is truly outstanding.

International TV exec refines reality efforts, ramps up cable, global production at News Corp. unit

By Alex Weprin — Broadcasting & Cable, 8/24/2009 2:00:00 AM EDT

THIS STORY WAS CORRECTED ON AUG. 24, 2009. 

In 2007, executives at News Corp. faced a daunting task with their Fox Television Studios division. It was lacking focus, acquiring production companies from all over the world, with tentacles in areas where it wasn’t delivering results.

To try to change the atmosphere at the studio, News Corp. executives knew they wanted an outsider, someone with business savvy but also with a perspective that was missing from the division.

“The reason I started Fox Television Studios was that I wanted a different perspective on production,” recalls Peter Chernin, who left his role as president and COO of News Corp. in July. “I wanted someone to think non-traditionally, with different models, different financial models, different kinds of creative people to be working with.”

That search led them halfway around the world, where they tapped Emiliano Calemzuk, then president of Fox International Channels Europe, to return stateside and take over the studio. He immediately shifted the focus of the company’s unscripted efforts to concentrate on fewer projects. At the same time Emiliano Calemzuk began building up the company’s cable wing and boosting international co-productions.

“What we did was to streamline a lot of the infrastructure to take the studio to a financially sound position,” Mr Calemzuk says.

Two years after he took over, the studio has found its groove. It added new reality hit in El’s Kendra, which sprang from the companies’ already successful The Girls Next Door, and has a slate of international co-productions, including ABC’s Defying Gravity and Fox’s Mental.

While he has been busy trying to redefine FTvS, as insiders at News Corp. call the studio, Emiliano Calemzuk has made it his priority to expand its global reach. Co-productions with overseas television networks are at the heart of that strategy. Every March, Mr Calemzuk and his production partners from around the world have a confab in Los Angeles, where they can give input into projects FTvS has in development.

“That was one of the lessons learned as an international broadcaster,”Mr Calemzuk says. “The international broadcasters pony up a big chunk of money, yet they have no say or participation in the process. If the series gets canceled in the U.S., they suffer, because they spent marketing money and scheduled the show.”

International co-productions could also keep projects alive that otherwise may not make it, as they reduce FTvS’s investment. Earlier this month, TNT announced that Saving Grace, which FTvS produces, will see its fourth and final season next summer. Sources say the move was FTvS’ call after Calemzuk’s group determined that the show would no longer be financially viable.

The co-production strategy has a personal resonance with Calemzuk, who has spent much of his career building international channels from the ground up. Born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, Calemzuk went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied at the Wharton School of Business and the Annenberg School for Communication and worked at UTV, the college television station.

He moved to Miami after graduation and worked for former Telemundo executive Bob Behar before going to help launch Latin American music channel HTV.

In 1998, he joined Fox Latin America’s marketing and promotions department, eventually moving up to oversee all of Fox’s Latin American channels. In 2002, he moved to Rome to take over Fox’s European channels.

“Somehow these different people in these different jobs—programming, marketing, operations—he would keep them at an energy level so that late Friday night they all collapsed but were ready with their espresso shots on Monday morning,” says Anthea Disney, executive VP of content at News Corp., recalling Calemzuk’s work in Europe. “He is a tour de force.”

The energy that he brought to Fox International Channels in Europe has been crucial to rejuvenating FTvS. In addition to the international co-productions, Calemzuk recently spearheaded the launch of a new digital brand, 15 Gigs, that serves as a development platform for talent and concepts.

“It is satisfying on one end, but I don’t think we have started to scratch the surface,” Calemzuk says. “We are nowhere near where I think we could be.”

Experimenting with new ways to revamp the development process is at the heart of his plan to continue to grow FTvS—a plan not lost on top-level executives at News Corp.

As Chernin says: “He is looking at how you reinvent the model for producing quality content.”

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