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 A member profile by Chris Davison, chris@lthmedia.com
Eric Mika is the Publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. Eric began his career overseas and has since worked in many areas of the business, from advertising to print to digital. I recently had a chance to sit down with Eric to discuss globalization, funding and the future of Hollywood.
Q: Can you tell us about your background and what made you want to work in entertainment? How did you get involved with the HRTS?
-my father worked for the U.S. government, for the Defense Department, for 50-odd years overseas. I lived just about anywhere you can throw a dart on a map, so at an early age I saw the power Hollywood has on the rest of the world, along with the value and effect of marketing and advertising. I’ve been fortunate to have developed a professional career in the entertainment sector that had me based in Rome, London, Paris and now Los Angeles. I was with Vivendi Universal in Paris for several years. My experience with Vivendi was extraordinary since it was in the early (1999) stages of digital creation and we developed five advertising/ marketing companies across Europe to commercialize content on digital platforms. It was a fantastic experience. Before VU, I worked with Variety in Rome and London establishing their business opportunities internationally.
Three years ago VNU was acquired; I joined the Nielsen Company at its inception. I was brought on to help realize the global opportunities of the Nielsen Entertainment Group brands: Billboard, Backstage, Film Expo Group, Media Week, Brand Week, Ad Week and The Hollywood Reporter based in London. After six months, I relocated to Los Angeles to focus on THR. We quickly developed a unique strategy of print, digital and events. We expanded THR’s reach with strategic partners such as Reuters, Yahoo, LinkedIn and IMDb and extended the daily THR reach nationally and globally. THR now has the largest total distribution of any entertainment daily.
My first involvement with the HRTS was when I came out here two years ago, when I began at The Hollywood Reporter. It’s a great organization that serves a superb industry.
Q: What is the most exciting story on the horizon?
-the most exciting story really is about the entertainment business itself. The entertainment business is America’s largest export — and is embraced globally. This industry is facing fierce and interesting competition from every part of the globe with local content on television, film and digital platforms. I think the most exciting thing is that Hollywood still has a magical influence and content is still king, especially with all the possible platforms today. We need to continuously learn how to fully monetize good content in a multiplatform world. Imagine that just one digital entertainment-related Web site reaches 80 million users — that is exciting and full of revenue opportunities for content producers.
As we go further into the 21st century, exploring new forms of distribution, the 3D development is also extremely intriguing. The exciting story is really about this town and how it embraces the new platforms. Despite the challenges every single business faces, the opportunities are extraordinary. Even though these are difficult times we are lucky to be here because we are pioneers to what the industry will be in the next 10-15 years.
Q: In what ways does your international experience inform your decision-making process?
-the Hollywood Reporter is immensely affected by my international experience. THR is a terrific brand for Hollywood; however, we live in a day where films are being financed worldwide with funds from Asia, the Middle East and Europe. We live in a global environment. The studios’ box office revenue is made up of about 65% of international business. Thus the importance of international knowledge to Hollywood cannot be underestimated. DreamWorks is a great and recent example — it’s extraordinarily important.
The Hollywood Reporter has correspondents in 24 countries around the globe. We have offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and London and obviously New York and LA. The more data we can supply our readers to help them make their decisions, the better we serve our audience. When I took over the helm two years ago, the first thing we did was launch a day-and-date print product for New York and a global digital edition. Everything we do at The Hollywood Reporter is about what’s best for our clients and readers, who are global in nature, their business is global by nature. All that said, Hollywood is the epicenter of worldwide business and our reporters focus on the business of Hollywood.
Q: How would you compare The Hollywood Reporter brand to that of other trade papers?
-in the question, you just differentiated it: we are a brand and we’re becoming increasingly more so. We have a clear vision of where The Hollywood Reporter is and where we want to be. We are also diversifying into other media platforms. For example, on Sunday mornings, we deliver the weekend box office results via mobile. In addition, we have an entertainment TV program being launched in mainland China, Central Europe and South America. We are in discussions with production companies in Los Angeles as well. We have content deals around the world and we create major events. We have created strategic partnerships that allow THR to derive revenue from multiple sources and on multiple platforms — but the brand is and must remain true and loyal to Hollywood, our core audience.
Over the past few years, we established daily festival and market magazines in Pusan, Dubai, Hong Kong, Cannes, Berlin and in Los Angeles for the American Film Market; we stage events in each locale. We have a division within the company called THR Intelligence which creates white paper reports for governments and businesses around the world. As part of Nielsen, we have established strategic relationships with many other business units such as EDI, NRG and Buzzmetrics. We are able to use data and source it unlike any other trade publication.
Finally, the most valuable commodity The Hollywood Reporter has is its people and we are fortunate to have strong assets, experienced professionals who believe in the brand, who are passionate about its future direction and who work really hard to get us there.
Q: Is The Hollywood Reporter headed completely online? If so, will it be behind a paid wall?
-no. The trades serve a purpose in print and on all digital platforms. Print is a valuable asset, as is digital, but we have to understand how to continually better serve our audiences with unique content on all platforms.
It’s important for The Hollywood Reporter to build value on every platform for its readers. We will continue to create new products that will have different business models and some may be behind a firewall but THR.com will continue to stay as is.
Today, being in the business of breaking news is not exclusive but intelligent analytics of breaking news with proprietary data is exclusive and that is the direction in which The Hollywood Reporter is headed. We will continue to create products that will superserve the entertainment community.
Q: How do you compete with showbiz blogs and their fast turnaround times?
-THR is a daily magazine with a 24-hour international news room with bloggers, news alerts, live tweets and news that is delivered on every digital platform. So our turnaround time is very fast. However, we are not in the business of breaking news for the sake of breaking news. We’re in the business of reporting accurate news that serves our readers. The race to a headline is a dangerous game to play. The speed with which information travels is extraordinary now and the dynamics of journalism are changing very quickly, but at the end of the day the integrity of journalism has to remain no matter on what platform you deliver the news.
Q: Anything you would like to add?
-in general, I think that this is an extraordinary time, one in which everyone looks at their businesses and explores innovative and strategic partnerships that leverage each other's strengths. We are all looking at change, intelligent change to continue to be competitive and profitable. The Hollywood Reporter is doing just that; we’re here to get it right, to superserve the audience by proactively listening to their needs. As challenging as it sometimes feels, the opportunities are immense.
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