"Need & Greed"

There I was in my early thirties with one wife, two young children, and an overriding desire to pay the rent in my Bronx apartment, trying to get ahead in the exciting world of international television. My company, Screen Gems, was a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures and was involved in all sorts of businesses connected somehow to its core entertainment activities. The company had purchased several television stations including channel 4 in Puerto Rico, WAPA TV. In order to secure these licenses, the company committed, to the FCC, that it would not favor its own stations for the sale of its programs and promised to make them available to all stations in a market with arms length competitive transactions. I believed at the time that this was a reasonable commitment to make and I naively believed that the company had every intention of honoring its commitment. The president of Screen Gems was concerned about all of the Screen Gems activities, but his obvious favorite was the television stations division.

Screen Gems distributed the very popular and successful television series, The Flintstones, which had been sold in Puerto Rico to Carnation Milk who placed the program in Puerto Rico on channel 2, WKAQ.

One day I was called into my boss' office and told, "Norman, I gather the re-runs of The Flintstones are going to be available soon, and I want to be sure they end up on our station in Puerto Rico". I tried to remind him of our commitment to the FCC and he told me that he didn't care about that, and that if I wanted to keep my job, The Flintstones better end up on WAPA.

The plot thickens. While channels 2 and 4 dominated the San Juan market, there was a station serving the city of Ponce owned by United Artists. United Artists was trying to get permission to move their antenna to the top of a mountain, this would allow them to continue getting a signal into Ponce, as well as a terrific signal into San Juan, competing with our station. Screen Gems, doing what any American red-blooded company would do, was fighting the move of the antennae with the FCC by every means available. Needless to say, this aggravated the United Artists management.

I went to San Juan to begin discussions' concerning The Flintstones re-runs with the only two stations in the market that would buy them, our station, channel 4 and its competition, channel 2. I also discussed the availability of the re-runs with the advertising agency for Carnation Milk who indicated that Carnation was not interested in buying them.

I returned to New York and a few days later was summoned to the office of our general council who told me that I was in deep trouble and that United Artists was going to file a complaint with the FCC and the Justice Department stating that I had not offered The Flintstones to the Ponce station, and they would pursue those remedies available to them. They were going to try and put me in jail if they could, in that there were criminal penalties associated with the violation. I had images of having my wife and kids visiting their father, "the felon", in Sing-Sing, bringing me Mallomars, Oreos, and other comfort foods during my incarceration. I said to the general council that I had been ordered to do what I had done by my boss, and what was I to do? I will always remember his reply of, "Norman, the worst your boss can do is fire you for disobeying his orders, but if you obey his orders, United Artists or WKAQ could have you put in jail and I know what I would do if I were you".

I returned to Puerto Rico and determined what our station would pay and I discussed that price with the United Artists station who said, no thank you, but were glad to be offered the program. I then went to channel two and told the general manager, a good friend of mine named Raphael Ruiz, the truth. Being my friend, he said, "Look Norman, I don't want to get you fired or put in jail and I'll send you a letter today telling you that I'm not interested in the program". My life was saved and I did not go to jail, but for the first time I realized the power of management's intimidation of staff and their willingness to say, "If you don't do what we tell you to, you'll get fired".

As I read this morning in the New York Times, in a column entitled "Merrill replaced research analyst who upset Enron" (written by Richard A. Oppel, Jr.), I realized there must be a gazillion guys out there who followed orders and did what they were told because if they didn't, they would've been fired.

My own experience has convinced me that almost everyone misleads the FCC. Go back and review the network testimony from the 1990's hearings concerning financial interest and syndication, and you can see what I mean. An FCC commissioner asked me what could be done to stop people from lying or at least misleading the FCC. My suggestion was to the FCC was to put someone in jail for committing perjury in their testimony before the commission. Civil penalties don't seem to matter, going to jail however seems to matter.

Have studio executives overvalued and overstated assets? Yes they have. Have studio executives put participants who were to share in revenue at a disadvantage? Yes they have. Have studio executives conspired with one another to set prices and trading conditions? Yes they have.

At a time when senior corporate staff have significant stock options and considerable incentives to enhance the value of their options and increase the size of their salaries and bonuses, their very last concern would be the best interests of their producers, participants, and employees, as well as the best long term interests of their shareholders.

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