M.C. Antil's CableFolks

Commentary by M.C. Antil Showtime’s Fogge On a Roll Len Fogge is, as the song says, "movin’ on up." And boy is he jazzed. The head of marketing for Showtime is just giddy about all he’s got going in his personal and professional life. Not only is his network becoming a full-fledged media darling after years of being a cultural afterthought, but CTAM, which he chairs, is emerging from its chrysalis as a magnificently reinvented industry force. On top of that Fogge is about to sell his TriBeCa loft and close on a brownstone in the heart of Jerry Seinfeld-land, aka the Upper West Side. As many of you know, Showtime’s generated some terrific buzz the last two years with the development of original series like The L Word and Huff. Now comes the Kirstie Alley vanity project, Fat Actress, whose premiere was multicast over cable and broadband. And though the initial reviews for the show were mixed, it continues to generate the type of talk that Showtime has always found tougher to come by than, say, its well-fed rivals at HBO. Fogge credits his network’s increase in programming quality and buzz to the arrival of programming head Bob Greenblatt, saying that the former Six Feet Under producer brings to the job "a great respect for the importance of storytelling." "This is probably the most exciting time in the history of the network, and I think our stuff really holds up to any programming on television," Fogge says. As he talks you get the sense that this is the moment he’s been waiting for since he first joined Showtime. And what does critical acclaim mean to him as a marketer? "This kind of buzz gives us so much to work with, from the stars to the reviews. Never before for Showtime have programming, PR and marketing all come together so well. It’s like the perfect storm." And as for CTAM, Fogge was bursting with pride over how the organization has re-invented itself. Calling his a "transitional" chairmanship, he says the organization has moved from one where networking was more important to an entity focused on making the business stronger. In the nearly 10 years he has served on the CTAM board, the entire organization has become more professional, more results-oriented and, ultimately, more focused on what’s good for business, he says. "It’s probably best summed up in the tag lines. It used to be CTAM – All Tthe Right Connections, which really speaks to the CTAM of old. Today it’s, CTAM – How Cable Grows." To that end, Fogge also recently oversaw the production of CTAM’s first annual report, which was just mailed to members and details the latest manifestations of the organization’s on-going renaissance. "We figured it was time to tell people all about the changes." It sounds clich�d, but it seems like yesterday that Len and I were sitting at the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, just twenty or so blocks from the rubble of the former World Trade Center. It was a week after 9/11 and only residents and guests were allowed below 14th Street. As we sat, the table which had been wiped clean just minutes before slowly began to accumulate a white dusty rime. Len took his finger and ran it across the table, gathering particles of the pulverized building. "Things will never quite be the same, will they?" No they won’t, Len. But that’s not always such a bad thing.