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EXCLUSIVE: I’m told the decisions were made after Thanksgiving and 
HR asked staff not to reveal the news. Daniel Battsek will depart as President of National Geographic Films at the end of January and is working out his exit package. (Battsek was exited as Miramax president in 2010 just before its sale and joined NGF a year ago.) Battsek reported to David Beal who also will leave as President of National Geographic Entertainment at the end of December. The Beverly Hills office of National Geographic Films shuttered as of December 20th after HR had been laying off staffers for several months. Remaining activities will be housed out of the National Geographic Global Media group’s headquarters. But the exact future of National Geographic Films and Entertainment is unclear.
For instance, the future of NGF’s $100+ million film fund with ImageNation Abu Dhabi remains up in the air: I understand it was secured at a time when film financing was hard to come by and specified that it had to be spent within the specified 5-year time period on 10 to 15 features. Battsek was responsible for the development, production, acquisitions, and distribution of all of NGE’s film projects but staffers complained he wasn’t aggressive enough. Sources tell me that NGF had “a number of viable studio co-financing deals” available but they were not pursued by Battsek. Such a shame, especially because Nat Geo has won awards for its films, including the 2nd highest grossing documentary of all time March Of The Penguins which Battsek’s predecessor Adam Leipzig bought for $1 million. Plus, it’s such an iconic brand.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Exit package for running the company into the ground and laying off employees without warning just after TGiving…..?
I’m so sick of the generosity given to CEOS …..when was the last time you heard of a writer or director getting an exit package when the show tanks? Didnt think so….why not? b/c if the show tanks, they don’t deserve it. Same with a CEO running the company into the ground. I’m tired of the double standard of rewarding the bean counters who risk nothing….
Excellent post. I love the excuse that they have to pay them exorbitant salaries to attract the best. Yet it seems the “best” are only good at looking out for themselves, running previously successful companies into the ground, laying off the people who actually do the work, and making their escape with a golden parachute as the company goes down in flames.
What a number of blue chip CEOs will tell you in private is that aside from a handful of visionaries, most CEOs have very little to do with the success of their companies. In established, incumbent corporations, their prime objective is to maintain the status quo, go for whatever growth they can get, and avoid disaster. The status quo was established by someone else, and most CEOs in that situation avoid tinkering in case it brings on disaster. Ideas for growth are often generated by expensive external management consultants because senior execs don’t tend to listen to their own people, and are terrified of change in case it leads to disaster. In terms of avoiding disaster – there isn’t much a CEO can do when it strikes other than try not to look like a rabbit in the headlights at the stockholders meeting. So the truth is a CEO’s tenure is defined by luck more than anything else. They generally work hard, so people often mistake diligence with talent, but if you replaced them with any one of 100 other CEOs, the company’s performance would be the same within a plus or minus 5% margin. So executive pay is massively inflated, as are the golden parachutes. It’s the oldest trick in the book, if you’re paying me a lot, I must be good. And stockholders can say, look how much the board are paying that guy, he must be great. High salaries instill confidence. The other thing we need to remember about these guys is that they all sit on each other’s boards, so it is in their long-term interests to ensure executive salaries remain inordinately high. I keep coming back to the question posed at the end of Inside Job – Why should a financial engineer earn 400 times more than a real engineer who builds a bridge?
Incidentally, the other type of CEO is the genuine visionary – more often than not, they have built their company up from nothing with a clear sense of strategic direction (Microsoft, Google, Apple etc). Two problems with these kind of CEOs. The first is that market-markers will often say things about other CEOs – he’s got the vision of Jobs, or the aptitude of Bill Gates – about CEOs who don’t know their butts from their elbows. They provide an emperor’s new clothes benchmark for other CEOs to peg their salaries to. The other problem is that executives who happen to be in the room with one of these true geniuses for more than five minutes can claim some credit for their ideas, then leave to become CEOs themselves and wreak havoc on other companies. Tim Armstrong formerly of Google, now of Aol is a case in point. With luck being the defining factor, the majority of companies could be run by a chimp shaking a magic eight ball.
Having worked with Mr Battsek on a picture, I find it hard to imagine someone less enthusiastic about movies, about what they are and what they can be. Seemed like every moment was torture for him, time spent away from what he really loved, but I could never quite discover what that other thing might be. And his record this last year at NatGeo? OK, I’ll say no more.
If people who actually loved movies and understood the art form ran this business instead of the bean counters, we wouldn’t be looking at stories of doom and gloom such as this.
True. Same complaint was made about Battsek at Miramax – paralyzed by fear and didn’t produce enough. As for having the industry run by people who love the art form – keep dreaming. Senior exec told me he is in the business for two reasons – pussy and power. Very encouraging for all the genuine creatives out these.
as a nat geo alum from its last foray into features (rip hank) i continue to scratch my head in wonderment that tim and company have not been able to pull this off. greater is the sin with the kind of funds available.
As someone who worked tangentially with the company, Battsek was the very definition of an absent executive– someone who, despite his pedigree, didn’t bother promoting the National Geographic brand in any way, shape of form. You can say what you want about Battsek’s predecessors, Adam Leipzig and Chris Whitaker, but they worked their asses off and put together a devoted development team that was left sitting on their hands (after being cut in half two years ago) doing nothing. The way the staff (save for Battsek, who was never in the Beverly Hills offices) were moved around from office to office — each smaller than the last — in the building on Wilshire and Doheny was a bad omen of things to come over the last year. What a shame. They had plenty of good projects in development that went nowhere because of lack of support from Battsek, Beal and National Geographic as a whole.
By the way, Nikki, does ‘was exited from Miramax’ mean the same as ‘was fired from Miramax’? I guess only lowly employees get fired?
My understanding is that all the Miramax staff world wide were retrenched when Disney decided to offload the company and get out of the business of the low budget/niche film market!
Having worked with him, David Beal was painfully in over his head. With his greatest trademark being a “Mission Impossible” soundtrack and perceived access to Bono, he never made sense overseeing feature film. He should have been left with his efforts around music at NG.
The National Geographic channel needs to be taken off the air. I was perusing the TV guide on my satellite TV recently and National Geographic had nothing for three days except nazis. When did National Geographic became the Hitler Channel (I’m sorry, History Channel) or the Military Channel?
It happened when the History Channel chanegd its name to History and started producing original programming that was a poor imitation of its soruce material – specifically the US version of Britan’s TOP GEAR. The US version is a joke. History should simply kill this atrocity now and show UK TOP GEAR re-runs instead.
Sure about that Dorothy? Because it looks like tonight’s lineup is about Grand Central Station, Jesus, Vikings, and Atlantis. Seems pretty SS-free to me. I like National Geographic Channel. They aren’t showing garbage like two hicks building choppers in a scripted duel.
Nat Geo didn’t do anything but buy March from the French production companies. I find it quite incredible to give them any credit for this movie… If their only real success is something they haven’t produced, it says a lot about where they were going…
This is really a shame, given that National Geographic is one of the strongest brands that has ever evolved in American business. In WDC, Discovery Communications’ relatively new and much more substantial profile has completely usurped stately old Nat Geo, which seems content to rest on its long-past laurels instead of exploring new territories, media-scape and otherwise. Next stop, Dinosaur Lounge?
Where is National Geo Ventures in all of this? Is Dennis Patrick responsible for these ridiculous exec hires and their ridiculous exit packages? Is he going to pay a price for this? I assume not.
Thank God Nat Geo is now in the capable hands of Ashok Amritrage, who only makes top quality films and never skims money off the top of any of his projects.
RE: Mr. Amritrage. When you say “top quality”, are we talking about “Invisible Mom II”, “Nine Deaths of the Ninja”, or perhaps the more recent “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night” (RT: “Entirely derivative and utterly wretched.”)? And never skims money? Or only when it’s absolutely necessary?
I was actually referring to the cinematic masterpiece, STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI, exploring layers of meaning and subtext not seen on film since RASHOMON, and eliciting a performance from Chris Klein that will be used as a master class in acting for generations to come. And I was absolutely not suggesting that his Bentley, or the renovations to his house, or any pieces in his art collection came out of any of the budgets of his films.
Another example of failing upwards. And the rank & file suffer. But hey – what’s a 100M and eager cofinanciers when it comes to making movies anyway?
Can’t echo enough what Natgeoalum commented about David Beal, I worked with David and I can confirm that he was hopelessly in beyond his abilities as president of NGE. It was embarrassing and true testament that with enough BS you can win a top job.
That commment about David Beal is a bunch of BS.
Look up his work at Palm Pictures, also many other project.
David was not the CEO of NG.
It was the CEO that had to give the OK for each film.
And that is where the BUCK should fall.