Chernin Entertainment: Not your daddy’s media company
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Team Chernin does not want you to think that the executive who spent three decades in television and film is just another ‘old media’ dude.
Peter Chernin is also eager to spend money in digital entertainment as he bulks up his new company, Chernin Entertainment, according to people close to the former Fox executive. On Tuesday, Company Town reported that Chernin recently hired three young business development executives with MBAs to help line up acquisitions, possibly including a cable television channel. That post triggered a flurry of phone calls and e-mails saying that the former News Corp. president and co-architect of popular video website Hulu was no less interested in digital media.
Chernin’s mini media empire would include digital media, TV channels and a movie studio, people familiar with his plans have said. Chernin kicked the tires of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he once expressed interest in acquiring Universal Pictures from its soon-to-be owner Comcast, but Comcast wasn’t interested in selling.
Chernin’s newly hired business executives -- former Goldman Sachs banker Jesse Jacobs, Jason Bergsman and Scott Bromley -- seem most interested in digital media. Bergsman, who has an MBA from Harvard, also worked at Goldman Sachs before joining the Walt Disney Company. Before joining Chernin in January, he was a director for digital media at NBC Universal. Bromley, who last year received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, also worked at Disney before spending two years at venture capital firms.
There is ‘lots of talk about ‘digital,’ gaming, ‘next generation’ TV [and] international,’ said one person familiar with the conversations who asked not be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the group’s plans.
-- Meg James
