Changing the way Exhibitors do Business
Submitted by Nick Dager on Mon, 06/28/2010 - 17:12.
As many people are already aware, Cinedigm Digital Cinema’s co-founder A. Dale “Bud” Mayo has retired as chief executive officer and president of the company effective immediately. He will continue as chairman of the board of directors. A search for a successor has begun. I first met Mayo in person in the spring of 2005 at the midnight premiere of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The event was held at Cinedigm’s own Pavilion Digital Showcase Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, which has five 2K-digital cinema screens and, at the time laid claim to being the largest 2K venue in the United States. Then, and now, that venue for that event seems fitting in so many ways for there is simply no question that Bud Mayo played a key role in changing the way exhibitors do business.
The theatre is just across the street from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in one of the most pleasant neighborhoods in all of New York City. Cinedigm (at the time, AccessIT) gave the event the treatment it warranted and even included searchlights out front.
The Pavilion is an old movie house that has been tastefully restored and converted into five smaller theatres. The Pavilion traces its history to the earliest days of movies and, in fact, began its life as a nickelodeon. That night, for people who were interested, Cinedigm executives gave a short tutorial on the business and technology of digital cinema and tours of the projection booth. Equipment in the theatre includes five Christie CP2000 2K projectors and support equipment from Dolby, Doremi and QSC.
Once we were seated Mayo thanked everyone for coming and said that Cinedigm had digitally delivered 13 features and 90 trailers since the previous June. He said that by the end of 2005 there would be 1,000 digital screens in the United States. He predicted that number would grow to 5,000 in 2006 and to 15,000 by 2007. They’ll receive “content that isn’t just movies,” he said. “Theatres are going to change the way they do business. Our company and our people are a key part of that evolution.” With that, the theatre lights dimmed, the familiar sounds of John Williams’s Star Wars theme filled the room and the digital era at Brooklyn’s Pavilion began.
That Mayo was incorrect on some of his predictions about how fast digital cinema would be adopted was through no fault of his own. He was right about everything else and today, thanks in large part to the efforts of Mayo and the rest of the people at Cinedigm the digital era is well underway around the world.
In a prepared statement announcing his retirement Mayo said, “When I founded Cinedigm, my vision was to build an innovative and important company that was on the cutting edge of the transformation of the movie business to digital. Now ten years later, I could not be more proud of what we have created. We have developed into the industry leader in providing the essential services, content and technology that allow for the transformation of movie theaters into networked entertainment centers. We have steadfastly supported both our studio and exhibitor partners as they offer their customers a fantastic digital experience. With digital conversion accelerating and a strong fiscal year 2010 just completed, I leave the company on a solid trajectory of growth and I look forward to my retirement.”
Until a new CEO is named, Adam M. Mizel, who currently serves as the company’s chief strategy and chief financial officer, and Gary S. Loffredo, who currently serves as the company’s senior vice president-business affairs and general counsel, will run the day-to-day management of the company. The board has retained Korn/Ferry International to assist in identifying candidates from which to select a permanent replacement.
Mayo began his career at IBM in 1965 and founded several technology and financial services businesses. In 1994 he co-founded the Clearview Cinema Group and sold it four years later to Cablevision. He served as CEO and president of Cablevision Cinemas from 1998 to 2000.
I spoke with Mayo on a recent sunny and beautiful summer afternoon and, despite the weather, he said, he plans to remain busy. “I won’t be playing golf and tennis all the time,” he said. Mayo is still the largest shareholder in Cinedigm and continues to have a vested interest in its ongoing success and he is quick to praise all of the company’s employees saying, “There’s no way I did this myself.” He points to Cinedigm’s long-term contracts with all the major Hollywood studios as just one of the reasons he’s confident the company’s success will continue.
But he came to see the company’s ten-year anniversary as an ideal moment to step aside. “I’m thrilled to be retired. It’s the perfect time,” Mayo said. “Momentum has turned. You really need to have the guy that leads that next decade.”
The question from the start of the digital cinema conversion is the same question that remains today, he said: “How do we use all of this? That’s something I learned from my IBM days. It’s all about applications; it’s not about the technology.”
He said he learned during his Clearview days that exhibition was an industry that was not performing as well as it could. At that time he looked at theatres that were often empty 90 percent of the time and realized it needed to be fixed. But the technology wasn’t quite there yet and Cablevision was not ready or interested in pursuing his ideas so he founded AccessIT.
He recognizes that he ruffled some feathers, especially in the early days. “I was an outsider,” he said, and a large part of the exhibition community was resistant to change. It didn’t bother him. “There are always doubters but with folks like me, that just spurs you on.”
When asked what changes the next decade will bring, he said, “It’s pretty hard to tell. One thing is certain, movie theatres will become destinations for a vast array of content.” He predicted that the content available at movie theatres and the way shows are scheduled would be similar to how cable television operates today. Movies and other content will be played at specific dates and times designed to suit target audiences. In some theatres one screen will play a feature film in English, while the screen next door in the same theatre will offer the same movie in Spanish or some other language. Release windows will shrink as what is now called alternative content occupies a bigger space in exhibitors’ revenue streams. There could be lecture series in some theatres, sports in others all of it built around groups of likeminded people. “People like to get out of their homes,” said Mayo. “They love the shared experience and that will always be with us.”
Brooklyn’s Pavilion Theatre was a pioneering nickelodeon at the turn of the last century, an era that saw movies inexorably supplant vaudeville as the world’s dominant entertainment choice. The differences in the movie theatre of a decade or so from now and the entertainment available there will be just as dramatic as that and one of the people we have to thank is Bud Mayo.
The theatre is just across the street from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in one of the most pleasant neighborhoods in all of New York City. Cinedigm (at the time, AccessIT) gave the event the treatment it warranted and even included searchlights out front.The Pavilion is an old movie house that has been tastefully restored and converted into five smaller theatres. The Pavilion traces its history to the earliest days of movies and, in fact, began its life as a nickelodeon. That night, for people who were interested, Cinedigm executives gave a short tutorial on the business and technology of digital cinema and tours of the projection booth. Equipment in the theatre includes five Christie CP2000 2K projectors and support equipment from Dolby, Doremi and QSC.
Once we were seated Mayo thanked everyone for coming and said that Cinedigm had digitally delivered 13 features and 90 trailers since the previous June. He said that by the end of 2005 there would be 1,000 digital screens in the United States. He predicted that number would grow to 5,000 in 2006 and to 15,000 by 2007. They’ll receive “content that isn’t just movies,” he said. “Theatres are going to change the way they do business. Our company and our people are a key part of that evolution.” With that, the theatre lights dimmed, the familiar sounds of John Williams’s Star Wars theme filled the room and the digital era at Brooklyn’s Pavilion began.
That Mayo was incorrect on some of his predictions about how fast digital cinema would be adopted was through no fault of his own. He was right about everything else and today, thanks in large part to the efforts of Mayo and the rest of the people at Cinedigm the digital era is well underway around the world.
In a prepared statement announcing his retirement Mayo said, “When I founded Cinedigm, my vision was to build an innovative and important company that was on the cutting edge of the transformation of the movie business to digital. Now ten years later, I could not be more proud of what we have created. We have developed into the industry leader in providing the essential services, content and technology that allow for the transformation of movie theaters into networked entertainment centers. We have steadfastly supported both our studio and exhibitor partners as they offer their customers a fantastic digital experience. With digital conversion accelerating and a strong fiscal year 2010 just completed, I leave the company on a solid trajectory of growth and I look forward to my retirement.”
Until a new CEO is named, Adam M. Mizel, who currently serves as the company’s chief strategy and chief financial officer, and Gary S. Loffredo, who currently serves as the company’s senior vice president-business affairs and general counsel, will run the day-to-day management of the company. The board has retained Korn/Ferry International to assist in identifying candidates from which to select a permanent replacement.
Mayo began his career at IBM in 1965 and founded several technology and financial services businesses. In 1994 he co-founded the Clearview Cinema Group and sold it four years later to Cablevision. He served as CEO and president of Cablevision Cinemas from 1998 to 2000. I spoke with Mayo on a recent sunny and beautiful summer afternoon and, despite the weather, he said, he plans to remain busy. “I won’t be playing golf and tennis all the time,” he said. Mayo is still the largest shareholder in Cinedigm and continues to have a vested interest in its ongoing success and he is quick to praise all of the company’s employees saying, “There’s no way I did this myself.” He points to Cinedigm’s long-term contracts with all the major Hollywood studios as just one of the reasons he’s confident the company’s success will continue.
But he came to see the company’s ten-year anniversary as an ideal moment to step aside. “I’m thrilled to be retired. It’s the perfect time,” Mayo said. “Momentum has turned. You really need to have the guy that leads that next decade.”
The question from the start of the digital cinema conversion is the same question that remains today, he said: “How do we use all of this? That’s something I learned from my IBM days. It’s all about applications; it’s not about the technology.”
He said he learned during his Clearview days that exhibition was an industry that was not performing as well as it could. At that time he looked at theatres that were often empty 90 percent of the time and realized it needed to be fixed. But the technology wasn’t quite there yet and Cablevision was not ready or interested in pursuing his ideas so he founded AccessIT.
He recognizes that he ruffled some feathers, especially in the early days. “I was an outsider,” he said, and a large part of the exhibition community was resistant to change. It didn’t bother him. “There are always doubters but with folks like me, that just spurs you on.”
When asked what changes the next decade will bring, he said, “It’s pretty hard to tell. One thing is certain, movie theatres will become destinations for a vast array of content.” He predicted that the content available at movie theatres and the way shows are scheduled would be similar to how cable television operates today. Movies and other content will be played at specific dates and times designed to suit target audiences. In some theatres one screen will play a feature film in English, while the screen next door in the same theatre will offer the same movie in Spanish or some other language. Release windows will shrink as what is now called alternative content occupies a bigger space in exhibitors’ revenue streams. There could be lecture series in some theatres, sports in others all of it built around groups of likeminded people. “People like to get out of their homes,” said Mayo. “They love the shared experience and that will always be with us.”
Brooklyn’s Pavilion Theatre was a pioneering nickelodeon at the turn of the last century, an era that saw movies inexorably supplant vaudeville as the world’s dominant entertainment choice. The differences in the movie theatre of a decade or so from now and the entertainment available there will be just as dramatic as that and one of the people we have to thank is Bud Mayo.