FreemantleMedia North American CEO and American Idol producer Cecile Frot-Coutaz, Colombian producer Fernando Gaitán, Fox president of station ops Dennis Swanson and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner will receive the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award at the next NATPE Market & Conference. The annual confab is set for January 23-25 at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami; a cocktail reception to celebrate the honorees is January 24. The award recognizes professionals who “exhibit extraordinary passion, leadership, independence and vision in the process of creating television programming.”


What a class act Brandon Tartikoff was. While waiting to take a meeting at Disney in Burbank in the mid ’90s, I was in the lobby. He approached me, a nobody, reached out and straightened my sport jacket’s collar.