CJZ co-founder slams ‘arsehole’ business affairs departments at TV networks
Business affairs departments at TV networks seem to believe it is their job to stop shows from getting made and are ruining the production sector, according to Nick Murray.
“We have a chart of arsehole business affairs departments in my office, and we rank them, and the ranking – there’s a lot of competition to get to the top of that chart,” the co-founder and managing director of CJZ – which is behind the likes of Gruen, Bondi Rescue and Street Smart – said.
Murray: It’s ‘insane’ we’re encouraging more people to join the industry
It is these ‘arseholes’ who are holding back the production sector, delaying deals between producers and networks, and stopping shows from getting made.
“The avaricious nature of some of the deals that we’re being given are being driven by the business affairs departments,” he said at Screen Forever in Melbourne. “I came out of business affairs at Channel Ten. I thought my job was to help shows get made and help deals get done quickly and get the money in the producers’ hands so the energy was going to the creative part of the show.
“I get the feeling that the business affairs departments now think their job is to try and stop shows – to make it as difficult for us as possible.”
Murray has form at conferences – previously lashing out at former ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie and mining magnate Gina Rinehart.
The ABC in particular was in the firing line at this year’s Screen Forever gathering.
“We have two full-time lawyers now at our company – and that’s not including me. It’s ridiculous that we have two lawyers. We shouldn’t have two lawyers. We have to have it because of the stupid deals that get changed every month or two by the networks.
“The new ABC deal gives the ABC distribution rights on our shows. We don’t have any say on where that goes. They’ve gone ‘We will take the distribution rights’.
The ABC recently announced Gruen will return in 2019
“Now that is the same deal that we were complaining about as an industry in 2001, and they’ve just brought it back with no consultation with us.”
He noted there was a “nastiness” in TV deals, which he believes is being driven by business affairs, and not by the programmers.
Given the current environment, Murray said it was “insane” the industry was encouraging more people to join its ranks.
“There are apparently 2,819 active film and production business in Australia. In the UK, I think the number is 900. So that is ridiculous,” he said, citing Deloitte’s recent Screen Production in Australia report.
“We’ve got 2,800 businesses in Australia, and in a market the size of the UK, there are only 900. So it is insane that the agencies are doing anything to encourage people to think that they will be successful. It is highly [unethical].
“In a normal business, most businesses fail in the first three years. That is in normal business where you are dealing direct with customers. We’re dealing with the changing, shifting sands of broadcast television, we’re dealing in an environment where Foxtel are not commissioning any non-drama shows at the moment. It is a very, very precarious industry and we’re encouraging more people to get into it, and it’s insane.”
Some of the blame, however, may lie with educational institutions, which pump out students for the sake of it, according to Princess Pictures’ managing director Jenni Tosi.
“The last figure I heard was something like 400 different courses around Australia that you could do that are media related. So it sets up the expectation that everybody can come out and start a business, and of course in the last 10 years, ‘start-ups’ have become a really sexy word,” she said in response to Murray’s concerns.
“But there’s a big difference between being a $2 company and being a company that has cash on its balance sheet, and particularly a company that has the wherewithal to be able to raise money from a bank or have a line of credit that can cash flow the offset and not pay a premium on that interest,” she said.
“So there’s got to be an understanding of what it means to be in business and I think, universities are in the business of creating students for the sake of, or creating courses to serve students for the sake of turning over fees, and I think that’s part of the reason that has caused the rapid expansion of these companies and the figure Nick [Murray] was talking about doesn’t even include production companies. So that’s another 400 on top of that. So at some point, there has to be some kind of rationalisation.”
These comments are fairly unprofessional from CJZ and quite disparaging. A commercial networks role is not just to commission a show, they are commercial networks that are required to generate revenue for their shareholders. Biting the hand that feeds in such a crass way is not the best way to air individual grievances.
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Completely agree – it sounds like the only thing he didn’t do was give the details of the internal rankings of how much CJZ hates its commercial partners…
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The sad thing is, ‘too big to fail’ really applies here. CJZ, Matchbox and The Chaser team could take a collective dump in the ABC foyer and their programs would still get made by the ABC.
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Good luck when you need to pitch a show, if marginal TV executives are famous for having long memories.
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Classic gutless. If I can avoid making a show I can avoid any chance of making a flop. This business is for risk takers only. Piss off the rest
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In their annual report, BFI reports that in 2017 they counted 7400 production companies in the UK (not including post-production companies). It would have been useful to refute what Nick was saying, instead of just repeating it.
It could have saved me from a 30 second Google search.
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