To read full article, click here.

Hollywood Today | January 26, 2011

NATPE Day 2

Larry Namer, entertainment and media entrepreneur, has always been a forward thinker. Mr. Namer was kind enough to take a moment with Hollywood Today at NATPE 2011 on Monday evening and chat.

His road to success began as a cable splicer right out of college and after 10 years with Time Inc’s Manhattan Cable, “I was in charge of developing new uses of cable (beyond just entertainment) and was using the Manhattan Cable TV system to move data around the city directly competing with the phone company.” It was about this time that he an Alan Mruva had the idea for Movietime (which I worked for at the time), which we know today as E! Entertainment TV.

In 1984 Namer and Mruvka talked about the idea of a network that would be like MTV for movies, wrote a business plan but couldn’t get anyone to listen explained Namer, “and everyone told us we can’t do that, but we didn’t listen. Then off to the Soviet Union and started a media company while it was still under Communist rule. Then it was interactive TV and Internet in the mid 90s. So I guess it’s always been about identifying what’s next and pioneering the way.” Of coarse, after 3 ½ years they finally found a backer, and the company grew very quickly. He said “I’m motivated by challenges and going where no one has been successful before.”

At present, Larry Namer is the President and CEO of Metan Development Group which was established to bring programming to China. He explained what Metan is all about: “Creating content for Chinese audiences, both in China and for international Chinese speaking markets. Everything we do is multi-platform and quite honestly, I’m finding it easier to do creative storytelling across platforms abroad. The huge base of Internet and mobile users make extensions from TV to these platforms more economically justifiable. Even “made for the Web” content seems to attract more agency interest. We are creating original shows for the market and also buying up international formats that we are rewriting, recasting, and reshooting as local shows.

“Metan is also working with several organizations in China to create programming that can be seen in other markets, particularly the US.  We are also exploring the film industry, in the areas of content and film scoring. Details on this to be unveiled soon.”

We could only imagine what ‘a day in the life of an entertainment media mogul’ must be and he kindly indulged HT saying, “My day starts around 6am when I make calls to our key folks in China before they go to sleep (its 10PM then). Then 45 minutes on the treadmill while I watch the news. Breakfast and email follow and I’ll get to the Los Angeles office between 930 and 10am. A good part of my day is spent working with the LA business development team on structures for our latest China deals and also with the program folks trying to get our productions for China organized. Out of the office around 4PM and usually working from the house via email. I’m on the phone again with China at 5:30pm (9:30am there). Dinner is usually with friends or one of my older kids. Then it’s home and finishing up emails. I usually fall asleep watching TV around 12:30am. The current favorites are Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, and reruns of Arrested Development.

“When I’m in Beijing, it’s usually coffee at 9am with one of the local team, and then a few hours in the office for meetings. Lunch and afternoon are usually meetings out of the office which tend to go straight through dinner. Now that I have my Slingbox all set up, I’m watching the things I miss from US television on my iPad. Somewhere in between I’ll get the calls back in to LA.”

And if that’s not enough to keep him busy, fans and friends can follow the man on Twitter and Facebook!

##