Why This Matters: From Black Ink Crew to Live PD, Dan Cesareo's Big Fish Entertainment has broken ground and drawn ratings in the reality genre, earning it recognition as B&C's Producer of the Year.
When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought New York-based TV production company Big Fish Entertainment in June of 2018, it acquired one of the most innovative and successful players in the crowded unscripted television category.
Two years prior to the MGM purchase of Big Fish created in 2006 by former National Geographic Television and Discovery Channel producer Dan Cesareo the company teamed with A&E Network to launch Live PD, a groundbreaking weekly show that follows as many as eight police departments across the country in real time as they patrol their communities. It has become A&E's most successful series, averaging nearly 2 million viewers since its 2016 launch.
Live PD was the launchpad for a new subgenre of live, unscripted programming that includes Discovery Channel's Border Live and Nat Geo Wild's Animal ER Live, set to debut next month and produced by Big Fish, featuring live footage from animal hospitals and veterinary offices.
[Big Fish] makes an unproducible show each week, as far as I'm concerned, A&E executive VP and head of programming Elaine Frontain Bryant marveled. How do you really, technologically, get eight different cities to broadcast live, and get the access and trust of so many different departments, and manage to do that in an entertaining way? They are remarkable partners.
Big Fish's influence within the unscripted industry goes beyond the live genre. Its diverse roster of hits includes VH1's Black Ink Crew, about a lively Harlem tattoo shop, now in its seventh season; spinoff Black Ink Crew Chicago, now at five seasons; MTV's How Far Is Tattoo Far?, co-hosted by Jersey Shore's Nicole Snooki Polizzi, which finished 2018 as a top-10 new unscripted series among adults 18 to 34; WE tv's restaurant-themed series Hustle & Soul, entering its third season later this year; and VH1's Cartel Crew.
We do a lot of research into acquiring companies, and they were one of the few standouts where every buyer we spoke to loved working with them, MGM president of unscripted television Barry Poznick said. Big Fish brought in a ready-to-run production team that has not slowed down from the day we met them and is just getting started.
Even with new owners, Cesareo and Big Fish still have the autonomy to create new and innovative unscripted programming. The network has seven unscripted shows set to premiere on cable networks in 2019.
Their approach to development is very broad, and they are able to deliver on those big ideas, Poznick said. We're here to support them, but they are really leading their own charge we're not going to get in the way of any deal they tell us they want to do creatively.
Cesareo's production and leadership skills has earned him and his company, Big Fish Entertainment, the nod as B&C's 2019 Producer of the Year. He outlined his content development strategy, and offered his thoughts on the future of content distribution, in this conversation with senior content producer R. Thomas Umstead. An edited transcript follows.
B&C: When you launched Big Fish back in 2006, did you foresee the content development and business success that the company has achieved today?
Dan Cesareo: When we launched Big Fish in 2006, I just wanted to make shows. I wanted to be able to make creative decisions I mean, obviously, the networks ultimately exert creative control but I wanted that autonomy, and I had the idea that we could do it better or at least as well as other companies. But never in a million years did I think that we'd end up here. I joke that we're a 13-year overnight success, because a lot of people are like, Oh, they've grown so much so quickly.' And I say, We've had sustained growth for 12 of the 13 years that we've been in business. We've just had a lot more growth recently.' To put it in perspective for you, our first office in D.C. was probably about a 1,200-square-foot row house in Eastern Market. Next month, we're just moving a couple blocks up into 60,000 square feet in New York City.
B&C: You started at Nat Geo and Discovery. What was it about the business at the time that made you feel you could make a run as an entrepreneur?
DC: Prior to Nat Geo, I worked at a small production company and I had come out of working on live events and wanted to work on television, so I made this transition and worked at a small production company. Like all small companies, there was far more work and far more opportunities than the staff on hand, so I was given a lot of opportunities some that I was woefully underqualified to do at the time but you learn by being thrown in the mix.
I was hired as a production coordinator and within a couple months was basically in Morocco and sort of being left alone to field produce, yet I had no qualifications at the time to technically be field producing. After that, I worked at National Geographic Television, which is National Geographic Studios now. I worked on these small production teams at National Geographic, where you had to do everything. You look at the size of the teams that we have on some of our shows today, and there's over 100 people working on Live PD. I came up at a time when it was maybe you and the camera operator and an audio guy, or maybe sometimes you were the second camera guy, or maybe sometimes you ran audio. I had the opportunity to really hone my storytelling skills and was forced to learn all the different facets of the business.
B&C: What's the origin of the name Big Fish?
DC: The name Big Fish was aspirational. I think it sort of captures our ethos in terms of our goal and
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Why This Matters: From Black Ink Crew to Live PD, Dan Cesareo's Big Fish Entertainment has broken ground and drawn ratings in the reality genre, earning it recognition as B&C's Producer of the Year.
