Word: ovitz
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...accustomed to complicated arrangements. Controlling hundreds of leading actors, directors and producers, the agency's chief, Michael Ovitz, has reinvented the meaning of the deal in Hollywood, often representing nearly every major player in top films and selling them as a package. But Ovitz has long yearned to have his firm branch out from being merely talent agents. He got close to Coke executives when he helped arrange Sony's friendly purchase of Columbia Pictures from Coca-Cola...
Celebrity has its muscle in America, but politics has the power. Eddie Murphy can't drop a bomb, he can only make one. Steven Spielberg can beam E.T. home, but he can't run NASA. Superagent Mike Ovitz can't appoint a Supreme Court Justice (at least, we don't think he can). So the artists, most of them liberal Democrats, came to celebrate the politics of inclusion: after 12 years, or maybe 30, they were back on a party line to Washington clout...
...previous agreement with Letterman's representatives, headed by Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz, NBC had one month to try to match CBS's offer. Though neither Letterman nor NBC executives would divulge details of the negotiations, insiders say NBC made several offers, including a weekly prime-time slot. But Letterman rejected them. "If you were going to do a half-hour of prime-time television," he explained, "you would have to do it as well as Jerry Seinfeld does it. I couldn't do it that well, so why waste my time?" The prospect of a different kind of prime-time...
...begins to feel restless in his late-late (12:35 a.m. est) time slot. But when the job he covets -- host of the Tonight show -- becomes available, it goes to Jay Leno. With his NBC contract expiring next spring, Letterman hires a new agent, Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, and starts entertaining offers. Everyone from the Fox Network (which wants to team Letterman in a late-night bloc with Chevy Chase) to major syndicators like Viacom (which offers Letterman additional exposure on its cable networks MTV and VH-1) weighs in with lucrative bids...
...Nashville Now, a live show on the Nashville Network (TNN), has been on best-seller lists for 17 weeks. In just two years, the magazine Country America has doubled its circulation to almost 1 million. Even the arbiters of hipness have begun paying attention: both Spin magazine and Michael Ovitz's Creative Artists Agency have new outposts in Nashville. And Saturday Night Live this month featured Brooks as its musical guest...