ReelzChannel, a cable and satellite network dedicated entirely to news and shows about movies, won’t hit the airwaves until September 27.
As far as downtown’s Los Angeles Center Studios is concerned, however, it’s already a hit.
Reelz has signed a five-year lease, worth an estimated $5.4 million, for roughly 30,000 square feet that will make it the studio’s largest tenant. The network will take over the ninth floor of the Fifth Street studio’s 12-story office building as well as space in the lobby and adjoining buildings.
“This deal was most definitely a coup for L.A. Center,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. “Big things are happening on that side of the freeway and that area is rapidly gentrifying. If you are looking to find talent and draw from the largest labor pool, downtown is the best location; it’s the hub of the freeways and there’s mass transit available.”
Chris Bonbright, chief executive officer of Ramsey-Schilling Commercial Real Estate, who brokered the deal, said the price-per-square foot in the lease was in line with area asking prices in the range of $2.75 to $3 per square-foot.
Reelz is spending several million more to customize the ninth floor and build sets on the lot. That work is being handled by Pasadena-based Cal Pac Contractors Inc. and is slated for completion late this summer.
“It’s like trying to build an airplane from scratch as it’s taking off. We didn’t have any time to waste,” said Rod Perth, president of ReelzChannel. “We had to go to bid very quickly for the contractor. We really didn’t have people clamoring to land our business, because nobody knew about us. We were off the radar.”
A channel six years in the making, Reelz is set to launch in September with a subscriber base of 26 million homes. Reelz originally launched in October 2000 and was dubbed Moviewatch, but Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting Inc., the family-owned broadcaster that owns the channel, couldn’t sell the concept at the time. These days, Perth said, the timing is finally right given the widespread availability of movies on video on demand and pay per view, iPods, computers and cell phones.
Perth said that the network management first connected with L.A. Center three years ago but wasn’t in a position to make a decision because the business wasn’t ready for launch.
After the renamed network received the green light in late January, Perth, chief operating officer Gary Thorne and vice president of operations Fred Posten started shopping for a home for Reelz and the 145 employees that will comprise its staff by August.
“There were many places we considered out in Burbank and Glendale that were suitable for office space reasons and we seriously considered the pocket of space just southwest of Dodger Stadium, but we needed creative as well as technical and production space,” Perth said. “We had a tight budget, but needed production studios and a place that afforded us the ability to build our web side of the business combined with the sophisticated technical needs of our network.”
The building block of the network’s content is a show called “Dailies,” which Perth described as a property as central to the network as “SportsCenter” is to ESPN.
Reelz will launch with three hours of original programming a day and a variety of shows, such as a movie trivia game show, a show called “What it Takes” about how people have made it in the film business, and one dubbed “Lost and Found,” about hidden movie gems.
The network will rely on ads to pay the bills, and Perth said executives are about to begin presenting the network officially to possible advertisers.
“Ours is an early-adopter digital audience that is tech savvy,” Perth said. “These are consumers of new products that are a very desirable audience from advertiser’s point of view.”
Ready for its close-up
Located in downtown Los Angeles, the studio campus has six sound stages and covers 20 acres, including four blocks of city streets. It has office and production space for rent.
A little less than half of L.A. Studios’ office space is still available and studio president Sam Nicassio said the facility is trying to pull in a young, hip crowd to maximize the “cool factor.”
The site was originally headquarters for Unocal, which left in 1996. L.A. Center Studios was built on the land in 1999. Since then, the studio and its San Francisco-based owner the Bristol Group Inc. have pumped millions of dollars into the facility, adding a 400-seat theater, a 40-seat screening room, a photo studio and a huge commissary that doubles as a nightclub that can be rented for events.
“It may have been tough in the early days, but you have to remember that production companies have liked downtown because it’s so central, and office tenants have followed,” Nicassio said. “We started it and we’ll take the credit for being here early. The area’s renaissance has brought a lot of creative types to our studios and been a boon for our office space.”
Aside from TV and film production work, L.A. Center’s facilities have been used for car displays, product launches, large-scale corporate events and fund-raisers.
The studios are also home to small film-related companies, including Hollywood Paws, suppliers of animal actors, and Picture Car Warehouse, which provide motor vehicles for the movies.
Though it’s been home to many feature films “Mission: Impossible 2,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “Terminator 3” among them all of the production currently under way at L.A. Center is for television, including the CBS series “Numb3rs.”
“Right now it’s all TV on the stages,” Nicassio said. “TV is big locally right now and features are not it’s just the cycle.”
