The shake-out in media and entertainment after a few years of mergers, cost-cutting initiatives and massive restructurings has thrust many experienced executives back onto the job market — but they’re not all landing at mainstream Hollywood companies. A growing number of them are making their way into new roles as partners, advisers or entrepreneurs-in-residence at private equity and venture capital funds.
The burst of available executive talent has coincided with an upsurge of interest among investors in putting money into media and related businesses. Now that the dust is settling on the Disney-Fox, AT&T-Time Warner and Comcast-Sky megamergers, veteran observers see the next wave of industry consolidation coming through transactions greased with private equity capital. Some executives are lining up to be in a good position to help prospective new owners operate TV, film and digital content and distribution acquisitions.
Gary Newman, former co-head of Fox Television Group, is among the high-profile executives who have linked up with an investment venture. In October, he signed on as an executive partner of Attention Capital, a startup that was also spurred in part by the sale of 21st Century Fox.
“Right now, you have half a dozen or so really large [media] companies dominating the space,” Newman tells Variety. “They’ve got their mission and it seems to be about creating direct-to-consumer relationships, and everything is secondary to that. It seems to me there’s a lot of opportunity in the media space that fits within the creases of the things that the big companies are doing.”
