THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994 TAG: 9406090458
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940609 LENGTH: Long
International Family Entertainment Inc., the Virginia Beach-based company controlled by Robertson and his son, Timothy, said Wednesday that it is buying Hamill's Ice Capades. Terms of the assets purchase weren't disclosed.
{REST} IFE said it will produce TV specials featuring Hamill and her ice show that will appear on its Family Channel cable network. The company said its distribution arm, MTM Entertainment, will sell Ice Capades specials to broadcast and pay-per-view networks and turn them into home videos as well.
``Dorothy Hamill is an honest-to-goodness cultural icon to the baby-boom generation,'' said Timothy Robertson, IFE's president and chief executive. ``Hopefully, this will be a great promotional bonanza for us.''
The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star first reported three weeks ago that Hamill and IFE executives were discussing a potential affiliation. The deal announced Wednesday is one of a string of acquisitions and expansions by the cash-flush IFE. The company was created in 1990 to buy The Family Channel from its former parent, Christian Broadcasting Network.
IFE is a public company that is legally separate from CBN, but Pat Robertson is chairman of both entities. Tim Robertson runs IFE on a day-to-day basis.
Last year under the Robertsons, IFE expanded Family Channel into the United Kingdom and teamed with Steinfeld, star of Family's ``Big Brother Jake'' sitcom, to launch a second TV network called Cable Health Club.
The company also made two acquisitions in 1993. First it snapped up MTM, creator of such classic TV programs as ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' and ``Hill Street Blues.'' Then it acquired a chain of coastal South Carolina live-music theaters that it said it plans to turn into a national operation.
As with the previous purchases, the 55-year-old Ice Capades offers IFE what Timothy Robertson has called ``leverage points,'' ways to exploit one entertainment operation to benefit other of the company's subsidiaries.
Analysts said Family Channel needs more high-quality original programs to build ratings, and thus, profits - and that Ice Capades is an ideal candidate because of the increasing popularity of skating.
Also, Ice Capades shows could be staged at new IFE-owned theaters, particularly in tourist areas such as Hampton Roads, where the company has said it plans to build a theater in the next year.
Dorothy Hamill is now headlining a six-week Ice Capades engagement at a theater in Branson, Mo., where IFE already has some interests.
``This is an example of people with synergies coming together,'' said Tom Powell, associate publisher of Amusement Business magazine. ``There are all kinds of possibilities here, especially in television.''
Perhaps the biggest asset IFE gains with Ice Capades is Dorothy Hamill herself. The 1976 Olympic gold medalist for figure skating is one of America's best-known and most highly regarded athletes.
Timothy Robertson said Hamill has agreed to be a spokeswoman for Family Channel and to help develop ``a brand identity for the channel that goes beyond individual shows.''
Hamill, who at 37 still sports a modified version of her famous wedge haircut, was unavailable for an interview Wednesday. But in a prepared statement, she called IFE ``a perfect match'' for Ice Capades.
She and her husband, Dr. Kenneth Forsythe, a sports-medicine specialist, will stay with Ice Capades as president and chief executive, respectively, of the new subsidiary.
The two signed five-year commitments to the ice show, which will continue to be based in Scottsdale, Ariz. Hamill and Forsythe will also keep a minority ownership stake in the enterprise.
Hamill, Forsythe and Alaskan businessman Ben C. Tisdale bought the assets of Ice Capades in June 1993, two years after the ice show tumbled along with its parent company into bankruptcy.
They replaced the Ice Capades' vaudevillian-style revues with shows built entirely around the story ``Cinderella.'' Jim Briggs, chief operating officer for Dorothy Hamill International Inc., said attendance for the September 1993-May 1994 season soared by about 25 percent to 2.8 million.
That was still well below the Ice Capades' peak of 5 million ticket buyers in the late 1980s. But Briggs said the attendance was strong considering stiffer competition. At least five other major ice shows, bankrolled by such big names as Walt Disney Co. and Discover Card, are touring now.
Briggs said Ice Capades' revenues, about $20 million a year, more than covered its day-to-day operating costs under Hamill's first season. He declined to say whether the ice show was profitable after all other costs, including interest, are taken into account.
Some industry observers said they were surprised that Hamill, who skated for the Ice Capades for eight years in the 1970s and 1980s, would agree to sell the show only a year after taking it over.
But others said Hamill may not have had any choice because of a decision by Tisdale to back out of the venture. The Anchorage-based environmental-cleanup company he formerly chaired, Martech USA Inc., has been under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for questionable accounting practices. Tisdale was booted from Martech's board after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last December, though he remains that company's largest shareholder.
``All of his problems made getting financing from him increasingly difficult,'' said one amusement promoter familiar with Ice Capades. ``With the SEC breathing down his neck, it's been tough for him to do anything.''
Briggs, the Dorothy Hamill International executive, conceded that Tisdale ``was looking to be replaced'' and that that triggered the Ice Capades' search for a potential investor or outright buyer.
IFE was one of three or four parties that expressed an interest in Ice Capades, Briggs said.
Tom Scallen, former president of International Broadcasting Corp., the Minneapolis-based company that dragged Ice Capades into bankruptcy in 1991, said he was ``delighted'' IFE will end up with the show.
Scallen said he doubted Ice Capades could have survived on its own. Now, he said, ``it's in strong and good hands.''
by CNB