Liberty buys up small companies to form global network
Media moguls do not come any bigger or smarter than John Malone, the autocratic boss of the giant Liberty Media group. So when he went out and spent several hundreds of millions of dollars buying up and integrating a bundle of small media services companies into a global network, he was pursuing a vision that, alien as it was to the rest of the industry, made sense to him.
Independent, thinly capitalised companies, often dependent for business on personal relationships between their principals and individual producers, are the lifeblood of media services. Mr Malone was determined to build a factory where cottage industries had held sway. Welcome, then, to his creation: Ascent Media, a brash superstore amid the chic boutiques, a network of more than 50 facilities and 3,700 staff spread across the US, Europe and Asia designed to provide end-to-end post-production services to the big film and television studios.
Mr Malone's buying spree swept up some of the best-known names in the business: Soundelux and Todd-AO in Hollywood, Company 3 in New York, Rushes and St Anne's Post in London. The productions with which it has been associated include The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Kill Bill and Seabiscuit. Only the 89-year-old Technicolor can compete with the breadth of its products and services.
Mr Malone built the group between 1999 and 2002 in a binge of acquisitions that has now slowed almost to a halt. Last week it bought the London Playout Centre in a deal that will intensify its rivalry with the BBC, whose own lavishly equipped new broadcast centre has just opened for business in London's White City.
But critics point out that Mr Malone brought together some 40 highly idiosyncratic companies, several of them competitors. Many were financially stretched, they say, including some that did not seem to bring synergies to the group. "Acquisitions of that kind are usually a mistake," one media expert said this week, pointing to Das Werk, a German media services group that pursued a similar strategy and foundered in 2002.
Ken Williams, appointed Ascent Media chief executive 18 months ago, has no illusions about the complexity of the task ahead. "There will always be problems when you roll up close to 40 companies in 2?years with no one company having a dominant culture," he says. "There were 40 different accounting systems and 40 different computer systems. We found we had a number of wonderfully entrepreneurial executives but we did not have the layer of organisational managers to run the business on the scale John [Malone] envisaged."
Putting that layer into place, calling a truce between fierce rivals and creating a common culture across the company, has proved harder than anybody imagined, concedes Mr Williams, a veteran of the media services business: "The good news when I arrived was that a lot of the 'heavy lifting' had been done. The accounting and computer systems had been standardised and plans for rebranding the company put in place."
How did he cure the management weaknesses? "We did an internal talent search and groomed executives who had the potential to grow. In addition, we looked outside for managers in the media and entertainment space who had that broader exposure in the industry," he says.
The name Ascent Media is only a year old: establishing it was essential to cleaning up the clutter left by the different and highly individualistic brands. The company today operates essentially in three areas: creative services - special effects and the like; media management services concerned with the duplication and distribution of, for example, DVDs; and network management services covering the group's satellite systems and fibre links. Mr Williams decided to leave the creative groups - often with local loyalties and customers - to operate under their original names. He chairs regular "town hall meetings" round the world to help infuse a common culture throughout the group.
But does Mr Malone's vision make business sense? Mr Williams defends the strategy: "If you are a major studio, you are grappling with many issues now. There are core technology issues. You've committed [to release your latest production on a specific date] because you want to take advantage of what is now a global phenomenon - the monster promotion machine.
"At the same time you're saying to yourself: 'I've got this intellectual property piracy issue and the quicker I can get this out to market, the quicker I can follow on with ancillary exploitation such as DVDs.' Oh, and you have to have the film ready for distribution in multiple languages simultaneously.
"This is not a situation where you say: 'I'll just give this to 25 little boutique companies around the world.' What you are now looking for is someone who can deliver a global product, seamlessly at a quality standard. That's what we bring to the media services business."
Competitors, on the whole, agree: "There's a lot of truth in that," the head of one post-production house says.
After only a year under its new colours, it is not possible to say whether Mr Malone's iconoclasm is working. As Ascent is a wholly owned subsidiary, it has no obligation to report revenues or profits. Executives say, however, that the group has budgeted for, and is seeing, significant growth in top line revenues and earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation in the first quarter of 2004 - implying that the business is growing.
While the company has yet to be melded into a coherent whole, it is the technology that keeps Mr Williams awake at night. "It's a question of making the right choices at the right time. If you get it badly wrong you could pay five to six times more for data storage than you need to. Or upgrade to a Spirit 2 [a high-resolution digital system] costing a couple of million dollars before you have to. It's not just about seeing the future correctly, it's about timing it correctly."
自由媒体建全球大网络
在当今媒体大亨的行列中，论气势，论才智，自由媒体集团(Liberty Media Group)独断专行的老总约翰?马龙(John Malone)都无人可及。因此，当他投入行动，花费数亿美元的资金收购一系列小型媒体服务公司，并将这些公司整合成一个全球网络的时候，他显然是在追寻自己的独到远见，尽管此种远见是业内其他人不敢认同的。
资金实力并不雄厚的独立制作公司是媒体服务的生命线，这些公司往往需要靠业主与制作人间的个人关系得到业务。而马龙先生决心要在向来由个体作坊主导的领域建造一家工厂。 阿森特媒体集团（Ascent Media）就是他创造的产物。它仿佛是众多玲珑小店丛中的一家显赫超市，在美国、欧洲和亚洲各地拥有超过50处制作设施，3700名员工，可为大型电影和电视制片公司提供全套后期制作服务。
马龙先生的收购热潮，席卷了一些业内最知名的公司，如好莱坞的Soundelux和 Todd-AO，纽约的Company 3，以及伦敦的Rushes和 St Anne's Post。而阿森特媒体集团迄今已参与制作的媒体产品包括《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)、《欲望都市》（Sex and the City）、《杀死比尔》（Kill Bill）和《奔腾年代》（Seabiscuit）。只有具有89年历史的 Technicolor能在产品和服务的广度上与之匹敌。
马龙先生主要是通过1999年至2002年间的频密收购组建起阿森特媒体集团的，目前收购活动已基本停止。上周，该集团收购了英国伦敦的Playout Centre，这将使其加剧与BBC的竞争。BBC在伦敦西部电视中心建成的装备精良的广播中心刚投入使用。
批评人士指出，马龙先生汇集了40来家风格迥异的公司，其中一些相互之间还是竞争对手，许多公司在财务上捉襟见肘，还有一些公司似乎没有能给集团带来聚合效益。本周，一位媒体专家表示：“这种收购方式通常是一个错误。”这位专家援引德国媒体服务集团Das Werk的经历。该集团曾推行类似的扩展策略，但最终于2002年垮台。
肯?威廉姆斯(Ken Williams)于18个月前被任命为阿森特媒体集团首席执行官，他对任务的复杂性不抱任何幻想。“要在2年半时间内磨合近40家公司，而其中没有任何一家公司占主导地位，肯定是会有问题的，”他说。“我们要应对40种不同的会计制度，40种不同的计算机系统。我们有不少具有非凡创业精神的高层管理人员，但我们不具备有层次的管理结构，难以按约翰（马龙）设想的规模运营业务。”
身为媒体服务业的老将，威廉姆斯先生承认，构建有层次的管理结构，在激烈竞争的对手之间达成停战，以及在公司内部营造共有文化，这些任务的实施难度超出任何人的想象。他说：“从好的方面说，在我上任的时候，许多难关已被攻克。会计制度和计算机系统已实现了标准化，公司的新品牌计划也已制订完成。”
他如何扭转管理上的弱点呢？“我们在集团内部进行了人才搜寻活动，培养具有发展潜力的管理人员。此外，我们还把视线投向集团以外，物色在媒体及娱乐行业具有广泛实践经验的管理人员。”
阿森特媒体集团这个名称使用不过一年：它的确立，对于清理杂乱无章、各自为政的多个品牌是十分必要的。如今，该集团基本上是在三大领域开展经营：创作服务，如特技效果等；媒体管理服务，如DVD的复制和发行；以及网络管理服务，涵盖集团的卫星系统和光缆链路。威廉姆斯先生决定让各创作单位延用其原来的经营名称，这些创作单位往往在当地拥有忠诚的业务关系和客户群体。威廉姆斯先生本人则在世界各地定期主持“畅谈会”，以便在集团内部营造共有文化。
马龙先生的远见在商业上明智吗？威廉姆斯先生为其策略辩护。他说：“假如你是一家大型制片公司，如今你必须应对许多问题。有些是核心技术问题。你已经承诺（在某个具体日期上映最新的影片）因为你希望充分利用当今的全球现象 ――庞大的推广机器。
“与此同时，你对自己说：‘面对知识产权被盗版的问题，我把产品推向市场的速度越快，跟进利用DVD之类辅助发行渠道的速度也就能更快。’还有，你必须准备好以多种语言同时发行影片。
“在这种情形下，你不能说：‘我只要把任务交给分布在世界各地的25家小公司。’你所要物色的，乃是有能力以高质量标准进行无缝运作，来推广全球化产品的服务。这正是我们推出的新型媒体服务。”
总的说来，竞争对手对此表示同意。一家后期制作公司的主管说：“这话确有不少道理。”
由于集团以新品牌运营只有一年，现在还无法确定马龙先生的标新立异之举是否正在奏效。作为(自由媒体集团)全资拥有的子公司，阿森特媒体集团没有义务报告营业收入或盈利状况。不过，管理人员们透露，该集团正如预算中所预计的，在2004年第一季度实现主要业务收入和扣除利息、折旧、税项和摊销前盈利（EBITDA)的显著增长，这意味着业务正在发展。
尽管公司还没有完全融合成一个步调一致的整体，但令威廉姆斯先生最头痛的问题还是技术决策。“这是一个要求在正确的时间作出正确选择的问题。如果你搞错了，你必须为数据储存多付5至6倍的费用，或在还不到万不得已的时候多花费两百来万美元升级到高解像度数码系统（Spirit 2）。问题不仅仅在于正确预见未来，而在于正确把握时机。”
