THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 4, 1995 TAG: 9503040407
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 120 lines
The name Tony Thomopoulos doesn't exactly roll off one's tongue. But it's one that International Family Entertainment Inc. President Timothy B. Robertson heard over and over when he starting scouting Hollywood last month for a new programming czar.
Anthony D. Thomopoulos is an ``A-list'' entertainment executive who has steered movies like ``Rain Man'' and TV shows like today's popular ``ER'' around the trap doors of Hollywood's tricky business back stages. Having worked for show-business heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Barry Diller, he has a Rolodex that Beverly Hills stockbrokers would kill for.
Now, as chief executive of Virginia Beach-based IFE's MTM Entertainment subsidiary, he'll be counted on to make the company's entertainment operations sing more powerfully and harmoniously.
There's a feeling among some IFE investors, who've seen the company's stock price languish in the past year, that those operations - which include The Family Channel, the Ice Capades and a chain of live-music theaters - may be too far flung.
Thomopoulos, 55, said he's happy to be handed the challenge of making them all click.
``What Tim realized, to his credit,'' he said Friday, ``was that the company needed to be more synergistic. There are enormous assets within the company, but we need to pull them all together.''
Thomopoulos will work out of MTM's Hollywood offices. But he'll oversee all of IFE's programming efforts, including its newest venture announced earlier this week, Family Channel Pictures. That unit is IFE's foray into the motion-picture business. The company plans four G- or PG-rated theatrical releases a year.
Thomopoulos most recently was president of Amblin Television, a division of Steven Spielberg's production company. When he was in that position, he put ``ER'' on NBC.
After Spielberg, music producer David Geffen and former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg teamed up last fall to form a new mega-production company called DreamWorks, Thomopoulos said he was asked to stay on in a ``principal part.'' But he said he realized that his role would be diminished with three heavyweights calling shots.
So he started entertaining offers. He was leaning toward a job with another West Coast company, he said, when he was contacted by Tim Robertson about a month ago.
They met in Los Angeles. Then he visited IFE's headquarters and met other senior executives, including Tim's father, Pat Robertson, who is the company's chairman.
``My enthusiasm built with each meeting,'' Thomopoulos said. ``I could see the enormous potential there.''
As head of Christian Broadcasting Network and the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson has alienated many in the arts-and-entertainment community for his conservative preachings and political activity. But Thomopoulos said that caused him no qualms about joining IFE.
``This has nothing to do with his politics or his religion,'' he said of the company. ``It has to do with family entertainment . . . I do share one view: that there's a need in the marketplace for what I call positive-values entertainment programming, and it can be a very successful business.''
Thomopoulos could be a character for the type of inspirational stories IFE wants to carve a bigger market for.
The son of Greek immigrants, he grew up in the Bronx. His dad owned a restaurant and sent young Tony to a Catholic boys' high school. After a high school aptitude test marked Thomopoulos as a potential diplomat, he applied to Georgetown University's foreign-service school. But while at the Washington university, he got interested in business instead.
His first job out of college was as a mail clerk at NBC's New York headquarters. He rose rapidly from there into senior marketing jobs. His big break came in 1973, when Barry Diller hired him on at ABC to oversee prime-time programming. He was president of the entire broadcast group when he left the company in 1985 to head United Artists Pictures.
That was where he fought his toughest battle: getting ``Rain Man'' made. ``For 2 1/2 years, every day of my existence, I had to fight the rest of the management of my company to keep this picture alive,'' he said. ``No one believed in it. They all felt it was a soft picture . . . and that we were going to lose a fortune.''
It didn't help that several of the movie industry's most successful directors, including Spielberg, rejected invitations to make the film. Finally, Barry Levinson seized it. With actors Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, Levinson turned the picture about an autistic man and his brother into a hugely profitable, Oscar-grabbing tour de force.
Thomopoulos will be shooting a little lower in IFE's movie-making venture. The company has set, at least initially, a spending limit of $12 million per picture. That's about half of the cost to make ``Rain Man.''
But Thomopoulos said he's convinced there are good stories available. ``We have to get out there and get our feet wet.''
He said IFE's programmers have built a solid foundation for the company. ``It's my role to take it to the next level, to add to the building.'' ILLUSTRATION: Programming czar Anthony Thomopoulos brings show-business sense
to International Family Entertainment.
WHAT HE WILL OVERSEE
The Family Channel
One of the nation's 10 largest cable networks, in nearly 61
million homes. It's current shows include the "Madeline" specials,
right.
Family Channel Pictures
IFE's foray into motion pictures. It plans four theatrical
releases a year.
MTM Entertainment
IFE's TV production and syndication company. Its current shows
include CBS' ``Christy.'' Its library includes ``The Mary Tyler
Moore Show'' and ``Hill Street Blues.''
Great American Entertainment
a chain of live-music theaters in South Carolina that IFE plans
to expand nationally.
Ice Capades
The nation's oldest and best-known ice-skating show.
KEYWORDS: FAMILY CHANNEL PICTURES PROFILE INTERVIEW ANTHONY
THOMOPOULOS by CNB