Ready for prime time - Westfair Communications

When Gary Lico was growing up in suburban Detroit, he was fascinated by radio and television. “Not just listening to the radio or watching television, but knowing the schedules and play lists,” he said. “I was always interested in the mechanics of the business.”

In fact, “when other kids knew baseball statistics, I knew what was on ABC, CBS and NBC at 8 o”™clock Tuesday nights,” he said. “It”™s true.” By the time he was a sophomore in high school, Lico knew he wanted to be in broadcasting ”“ “radio, at that point.” When he attended Central Michigan University, his vision expanded to television.

What he couldn”™t foresee at the time was that about a dozen years after he earned a master”™s degree in communication from Syracuse University, he would be a pioneer in a fledgling industry ”“ cable television. “I was the guy who went to the cable networks and sold programs,” he said “Cable networks weren”™t mature then,” he said of the mid to late ”˜80s. “Most cable networks were sports or news, that sort of thing.” And they didn”™t have a lot of money to buy programs to beef up their schedules.

“One of my first major sales was ”˜My Two Dads,”™” Lico said. “It had a lot of episodes but not enough to sell in syndication” to local TV stations around the nation. The company Lico was working for, Columbia Pictures Television, “made the decision to sell the program directly and exclusively to cable. What was significant was that it was the first time a sitcom bypassed syndication and went directly to a cable network ”“ USA.”

A few years later “around 1990 cable networks started to make their move, when they started to command in total an audience competitive with broadcast television,” he said. At the time, he was selling syndicated programs to broadcast and cable TV. His epiphany, he said, came while he was driving from Charleston to Beckley, W.Va. “talking on my primitive cell phone that looked like a shoe, closing ”˜Ripley”™s Believe It Or Not”™ and ”˜Real Ghost Busters”™ with the SciFi channel.” When he arrived at the Beckley TV station, “the manager said he couldn”™t meet with me because they were having a primary the next week.”

“Primaries? In Beckley, West Virginia? I decided I didn”™t want to deal with this any more,” Lico said. His contract with Columbia was about to be renewed, but he decided to let it lapse and strike out on his own. “I had been giving my life over to someone else,” he said, “so I walked into my boss”™s office and asked him not to renew my contract. He asked me what I was going to do, and I said I didn”™t know yet. But if I don”™t close this door, I”™ll never open whatever my next door is.”

The next door

Opening that next door took some courage. “Here I was with a wife, a 4-year-old son and a year-and-a-half-year-old son, a mortgage, everything,” he said. But within a few days of telling his boss not to renew his contract, “I had an idea for a company,” Lico said. He even had a name that he immediately trademarked: CABLEready ”“ all capital letters for CABLE and italics for ready. “It drives copywriters crazy,” he said, but it played off what TV manufacturers were touting back then ”“ cable-ready TV sets.

“As luck would have it, I was having lunch with the head of Hearst television stations and told him about my idea to be a program supplier just to cable and superserve the market. He said ”˜I think it”™s a great idea, and I”™m going to give you for (your) first program,”™” a children”™s program out of Pittsburgh. “Boom,” Lico said. “I”™m in business.”

He “staked $50,000 out of my own pocket, bought a laptop ”“ the first Apple Power Book ”“ and started in the back bedroom” of his Riverside home in Greenwich. It was August, 1992, and he began making sales presentations and working contacts he had made during the past 16 years he had been in the industry ”“ including one woman who was now at Nickelodeon, where he sold another children”™s show. “I was off to the races,” he said.

Within a year a previous employer called him and offered to buy his company. “I didn”™t exactly have a company,” he said. “I had a laptop, a phone and a couple of programs.” But he became a division of Katz Media ”“ which he had joined back in 1980 as a programmer, selling syndicated shows to local TV stations ”“ “moved out of my bedroom, took office space in Stamford and hired a couple of people, including one to help us grow in international sales,” he said. “I sensed that the same expertise we were bringing to cable television in the United States would translate around the world, as well.”

That employee knew someone who knew James Lipton at the Actors Studio who had an idea for a program in which he interviewed celebrity actors and actresses. Lico sold the idea, now called “Inside the Actors Studio,” to Bravo. “It went on to become one of their signature programs,” he said.

About 18 months after Lico sold CABLEready to Katz, Katz was ready to get rid of it. “They said I had gone through the capital, I was bringing in money, but they didn”™t understand the business.” After some negotiation, Katz essentially financed Lico”™s re-purchase of his business, “and for 12 years I”™ve owned it free and clear.”

Another door

Since then CABLEready has grown into a major player in the cable TV industry. “We”™ve launched a number of original programs, grown our international business, and brought more than two-dozen original programs to cable networks in the United States,” Lico said. His company represents production companies that create programs for cable, and also acts as the research and development department for production companies. “We know the need, we know the market, so we can direct the producer to create programs in those areas.”

Four years ago Lico moved his company to Norwalk to lessen the commute of his employees who lived upcounty, and last fall launched another business, digesting CABLEready”™s in-depth knowledge of the market into a fee-based Web site for the industry. The site, called CableU.tv, “is a one-stop shop for every piece of information you need to know about every cable network out there,” he said. It was a shrewd move. “If people aren”™t buying your premium line, maybe you want to develop a budget line to make sure you are your own competitor,” he said. “If people are going to sell the programs themselves and didn”™t want us to represent them, we are at least getting a piece of that business by selling the information for them to do it better,.”

Lico”™s goal for CableU.tv was 10 new subscribers a month, “and we”™re three times over that,” he said. “More important than that is we”™re credible.” And he has tapped a market with a potential for more than 100,000 subscribers ”“ at $850 a year. “So far we have cable networks, producers, advertising agencies, talent agencies, competitors and friends,” he said.

Lico said his privately held company will have revenues of more than $10 million this year, and expects revenues to continue their average annual increase of about 25 percent, “including a 46 percent jump last year.” In five years, Lico sees the potential for CABLEready to merge with or acquire another media company, and “if we”™re not a majority part of something much bigger, I”™d be surprised.”

“When I started this 15 years ago,” he said, “I didn”™t know what it was going to be. I thought, ”˜Gee, Gary, you”™re just going to do this until you get a job.”™ I think the answer is that I have a job now.”