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| HTN Communications
Chair & CEO Joseph Cohen |
HTN Communications Chair & CEO JOSEPH COHEN has been a leading figure in the television broadcast industry. He founded Madison Square Garden Network and established it as one of the largest regional cable broadcast networks in the country. On behalf of MSG he acquired the Hughes Television Network. He also co-founded the USA Network, where he negotiated the first-ever cable broadcast contracts for the NBA, NHL and MLB.
Cohen later formed an investment group, which bought HTN from MSG, and was a consultant for Rainbow Program Services, President & CEO of Spectacor, and Chair of the NHL Kings. He returned to MSG in ‘95 to oversee its media assets and the development of a practice facility for the Knicks and Rangers, but left the company again in ‘02 and acquired HTN for the third time. Cohen has served on the television committees for the NHL and NBA and has been active in the production and management of live events at arenas and racetracks. He spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Question: In ‘61, then-FCC Chair NEWTON MINOW called television a “vast wasteland.” Since then, the TV landscape has since grown much larger. Is there fertile ground in television today?
Cohen: Yes, there is a lot of fertile ground in television. People who have special interests -- archaeology, history, fashion, sports -- can all go to a channel and find a lot of content that’s not necessarily for a mass audience. But, yeah, I think it’s very fertile. It’s full of choices. Choice is a good thing, and I think it’s much more interesting than it was when choices were limited to the UHF stations and the VHF stations.
Q: You have been called a pioneer in television. What new frontiers in TV are yet to be explored?
Cohen: We’re in a new frontier now. High-definition television is as dynamic a change as color television was in the ’60s. HDTV is like watching a movie in your living room. And particularly for sports, which is my area of greatest interest, it adds a new dimension to the game. In basketball, you can see the players’ faces; you can see the coaches’ faces. Anything that the helmet doesn’t protect is fair game now. And the clarity: It’s like watching a baseball, hockey, football or basketball game in a movie theater. It’s dynamic and dramatic and it’s really exciting now because it’s starting to take off.
Q: What can we look for in the coming year, in the near future, in sports television broadcasting?
Cohen: You can look for being able to sit in your living room and direct your own game. That’s already a fact. Some of the cable operators with digital channels let you pick which camera you’re watching of the coverage. And of course high definition lets you watch the game as if it were alive in your living room.
Q: In that case, I’m going to make sure the camera stays on the ball. Why do directors of college basketball games, while a team is pressing, cut to a close-up of the coach or the cheerleaders or the crowd?
Cohen: It’s going to be widespread in the next few years where you’ll be able to watch the ball or the coach or the cheerleaders -- whatever your preference is.
Q: What’s the best new idea in television broadcasting?
Cohen: To me, it’s the ability to let each person be his own director and select the coverage that he wants to see of the game. It’s clearly better to be able to choose what you want to watch. It’s like TiVo. TiVo lets you be in control of when you watch a particular show. So, this element of choice. First, the more channels. Second, the ability to take the channel and move the program and watch it at your convenience. And then, the ability to take a live sporting event and watch it from your own point of view. So, choice is really taking hold, and it’s exciting.
Q: Aside from sports, do we need reality TV? Is life not real enough?
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| Reality TV Is An Evolving Art Form |
Cohen: I don’t watch a lot of non-sports reality TV. You know, the evening news is reality TV, and more often than not, it’s harsh reality, stark reality. It’s great to see MARK CUBAN and DONALD TRUMP begin new careers, though. But the world continues to change. And it’s evolving through reality TV, and it will evolve to another art form when the time comes.
Q: During a sports broadcast, we get multiple camera angles, replays, play-by-play and analysis, graphics and statistics, promotions, and interactive and commercial elements. With all of the distractions going on during the game, is there a danger of the sideshows overshadowing the main event?
Cohen: Yes. And the best producers and directors have a sense of that. If you watch AL MICHAELS on “Monday Night Football,” I think he’s got a particularly good sense of the event and where it fits in the continuum of a football season. And I think that the best professionals, whether they be announcers or producers and directors, never lose sight of the event. On the other hand, you have special producers for halftime shows and pre- and post-game shows, so everybody’s got a point of view and a job to do.
Q: For a Yankees-Red Sox game on YES recently there was a single sponsor -- GM -- with limited commercial interruption. Is it good value for both parties in TV?
Cohen: I don’t know the economics of that particular telecast, but it became available to the YES Network very late because there was a time shift and it wasn’t selected by the [Fox] network. It was a Saturday game. So it seems to me it was very clever to do that on short notice because it would have been difficult to sell the game in a traditional way.
Q: Is this something you expect to see more of?
Cohen: I think it’s a special-circumstance situation. You’re not going to see it widespread just because of budgetary considerations. But for a sponsor at a certain time of year who has a particular marketing challenge and for a rights holder who has something special come about, it’s quite a good solution.
Q: NBA TV, the NFL Network, The Baseball Channel -- Is the day coming when the leagues will take over and control all of their own TV coverage?
Cohen: The art form of television, and sports television, is constantly changing. It’s obvious that if the leagues have their own channels, they become avenues of exhibition for their games, if that becomes the highest and best use. If any league is not satisfied with the rights fees that the networks are offering, they’re developing an alternative for themselves. The leagues are creating an extra bidder, themselves, for their own rights. It’s a way of making sure that the marketplace gives them a return that they’re happy with.
Q: You acquired HTN three times. What’s so special about HTN?
Cohen: It’s a good luck charm for me. It’s a business that provides a service to rights holders and it’s a particularly good use of my career because I’m selling a service to people that I’ve done business with for many years.
Q: What’s the best call you have made in your career?
Cohen: The first call was at the outset when I decided that whatever career I pursued, I wanted it to be fun, and I actively pursued a career in sports and entertainment. The best single decision was probably in 1977 when Madison Square Garden was looking for a partner to launch a national exhibition of the rights it held at that time. I selected UA Columbia Cable, a cable operator, to help us exploit our rights nationally, as opposed to a movie company or HBO at that time. Having a cable operator as a partner gave us great insight into national distribution and satellites and how cable operators thought. And the result of that was USA Network, which I co-founded in 1977 with BOB ROSENCRANS. That’s become a great success that we’re all very proud of.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge in your position?
Cohen: Keeping up with the changes in the business. The leagues were not a factor in this business the last time I owned it in the ’80s. Now they’re a major factor in controlling rights and the transmission of the games. Also, technology is a great challenge. HDTV, for example, is a great opportunity, but keeping up with the technical aspects of the business is always a challenge.
Q: Who’s the shrewdest or most creative person in sports business?
Cohen: DAVID STERN has always been on the cutting edge of what his business needed. He never seems to be caught short, whether it’s in dealing with his owners, his players, the international community or the television community. STEINBRENNER gets a thumbs up for empire building. Also, George Steinbrenner has done a very good job in following the principles he adheres to and in building a dynamic empire. And ED SNIDER, who’s been consistently ahead of the curve with the Flyers, local sports television [Prism] and private arena management.
Q: What’s gone wrong with Madison Square Garden? And with the decline of the Knicks and Rangers?
Cohen: When I started at Madison Square Garden in 1970, it was the only indoor arena in the metropolitan area. In the ’70s and ’80s Nassau Coliseum came along, the Meadowlands, a brand-new Giants Stadium, which became a competitor for concerts. And now we’re looking at potential new buildings in Newark, Brooklyn and a Jets stadium. So, part of the problem is that there’s a lot more competition.When I started at Madison Square Garden, the circus played for 13 weeks because there was no other place for it to play in the metropolitan area. Now it’s playing in Long Island and New Jersey and its run at the Garden is two weeks, more or less. Q: A song in “The Mikado” lists things that would not be missed if they were done away with. What in sports would you not miss if it were eliminated?
Cohen: I think I’m a traditionalist. So, some of the production values that the younger fans appreciate are not what I grew up with.
Q: What impact did 9/11 have on sports coverage?
Cohen: There was a time early in my career when I questioned the validity of what I did in sports and entertainment as having a socially redeeming impact. It’s easy to see the impact that doctors have and social workers and lawyers have on society. But it was pointed out to me at that time to go into the arena and watch people enjoy themselves at a sporting event or concert or circus and understand that people need positive, leisure-time activities as a diversion. I think that I learned that lesson again as a result of 9/11. And, in fact, I enjoyed the recent HBO documentary [“Nine Innings From Ground Zero”] on the impact the Yankees had on 9/11 survivors and the New York community. I actually lived through that and it resonated for me.
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| Cohen Feels Sports Stars Are As Big
As Movie Stars In Society's Perception |
Q: Much has been written about the so-called convergence of sports and entertainment. Where are we with that? How do you see it?
Cohen: I think we’ve reached the point where sports is entertainment. I think it probably started with people like JOE NAMATH and MUHAMMAD ALI. But if you pick up People magazine now, you’re reading about A-ROD, you’re reading about TIGER WOODS, you’re reading about AGASSI or RODDICK. And sports stars are as big as the biggest movie stars. You see it in the magazine pages, you see it on the entertainment news shows, that what these people do, what they wear, how they live, all have media worthiness, and that makes it important to the society. And, therefore, makes it economically more important, and we’ve seen the impact of that.
Q: What can the different pro sports leagues learn from one another?
Cohen: One thing that the sports leagues understand, that the smarter people in the sports leagues understand, is that no one league provides full entertainment. And even though they now have their own networks and have been trying to provide content for 365 days, football has a season, baseball has a season, basketball and hockey have seasons. And to fill up 12 months with live event programming, they have to depend on each other. That’s why, when I was at the Liberty game, the baseball scores were up, the football scores were up. So there is an interrelationship between the sports. Now that they’re involved in regional networks, they promote one another, and the cross-promotion is vital.
Q: Will there be a West Side stadium in New York?
Cohen: In general, if it is fiscally responsible, new facilities are good for the community. And there’s a trend that these things tend to happen in bunches in the markets where they happen: in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Houston, for example. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Mets and Yankees both got minor league ballparks in the same year. I think that there’s a balance, and once the logjam breaks, you’ll see several new facilities in New York.
