Hollywood Agents’ Blueprint for Surviving the Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- Jeremy Zimmer entered 2020 in expansion mode. Ever since taking over as chief executive officer of United Talent Agency Inc. in 2012, Zimmer has pushed the company into new businesses, including music, marketing and short-form videos. This year promised to bring new opportunities in sports, TikTok and venture capital.

But the pandemic and resulting lockdowns have since devastated talent agencies, whose musicians, filmmakers and actors are at home social distancing instead of out making money. The two biggest firms, WME and CAA, have gone from expanding to contracting. UTA has had to pull back as well. In March, Zimmer announced a companywide pay reduction, which he hoped would prevent any staff cuts. In May, he furloughed employees. In early September, he restored full pay at the agency while simultaneously announcing a round of layoffs. 

Zimmer said his agency would bounce back next year with new concerts and TV shows. “I don’t think it’s a permanent state,” he said. “Unlike restaurants, where it’s not clear how to get off the mat when they have no support, we have some historical receivables. We have the ability to regenerate revenue and come back very quickly.” 

Zimmer, 62, got his start as an agent in the independent film business, representing clients like Noah Baumbach and the Coen Brothers, who all went on to win Oscars. His first foray into digital media, a production studio called 60Frames Entertainment Inc., had to shutter after just a couple years. But UTA now boasts one of the largest digital media practices in Hollywood.

From his Los Angeles home, Zimmer spoke to Bloomberg about building one of Hollywood’s biggest agencies, the challenge of working with Netflix Inc. and the next great revolution in the streaming era.

What is the role of an agent in Hollywood in 2020?

The role of an agent today, which is more complex than 20 or 30 years ago, is to sit at the intersection of various media streams and help guide clients to make decisions that will be the best for them as artists and as businesspeople — to manage their careers.

Sometimes it’s a uniquely intimate artistic relationship where you are guiding their artistic passions, and sometimes it’s very much a financial relationship.

Agencies  no longer seem content to just play in Hollywood. They want to represent chefs, models and athletes. They want to produce. They want to stage events. Why is that?

We used to have clients sitting on one side and networks and studios sitting on the other. Those were the constituents. We sat in the middle of the conversation and negotiated between these two, trying to serve both sides.

It got more complicated because you had technology come in, Netflix and Amazon, and the power of the international marketplace. You had private equity come in. Brands became more important. To serve clients with all those constituencies, you have to get bigger and more sophisticated.

It used to be enough to just have information that Warner Bros. is looking for a 35-year-old leading man to be in this movie. Now it’s so much more complicated.

Having that information first can still be valuable, no?

It used to be if you were the first person to know you had a weeklong advantage. Now, you have a 90-second advantage.

At what point did it shift?

One of the first things we did, which everyone thought was revolutionary, was to open up a digital division — let’s understand what YouTube is trying to do, how established talent can work with YouTube and how can we work with YouTube creators to make them stars.

When was that?

2006. We started 60Frames, a digital production company. The thesis was ‘let’s get established talent to make shows for the internet.’ Unfortunately, we raised money and launched in 2006. Then 2008 came, and we were unable to finance the company any further.

Which influencer has been the most successful at building a big business?

Anyone named Kardashian. They were America’s first real influencers. They’ve built incredible businesses.

Have any influencers besides the Kardashians built a huge standalone business?

We represent Emma Chamberlain. She’s a huge YouTube influencer who creates amazing content. We started a coffee business with her. Is it bigger than Starbucks? No. But it’s a growing business based on her real passion around coffee. We have multiple examples of that.

What has changed the entertainment industry more: Netflix or YouTube?

YouTube has had a broader influence on the whole — music, TV, young consumers. They spawned the idea of platforms. Netflix has allowed us to have what we want when we want it in a way that we’ll never go backwards from.

All the big talent agencies are now owned or co-owned by private equity firms, including yours. How did you decide to raise money, and what did you hope to accomplish?

We were building a company and making people partners, and we were giving them equity. But there wasn’t something that guaranteed that equity would be valuable. In order to have them believe they are part of building something valuable, at some point you need to make it valuable.

We also saw our competitors were growing and using private equity to make acquisitions. We saw that, as an agency, opportunities were ahead of us that we’d want to invest in.

You’ve acquired several companies over the past few years. Which deal changed your business the most?

The most exciting one right now is our investment and partnerships with Klutch. Sports are so much at the center of culture right now. The leader of that group is Rich Paul, a very dynamic executive. He represents some of the most famous people in the world, including LeBron James.

We made an acquisition in music several years ago of a company that was in a more difficult state. Building our music business has been an important piece of the pie. It’s been a little slower, but we still represent Post Malone, Guns N’ Roses, Bad Bunny, Chance the Rapper and some of the most influential acts in the world.

With the current shutdown of live music, do you regret that deal at all?

I’m not really into regret. It seems like a useless emotion. If you have a long view of anything, you keep your eye on where you’re going.

We almost acquired Paradigm. That one I probably would have regretted. 

When do you think concerts will resume?

I really believe we will see some version of return by spring or summer in terms of concerts.  I don’t know what it will look like. We’re heading towards that in a slow but steady way.

Considering all of the financial challenges facing the country right now, do you expect your talent will need to accept lower pay?

There are always ebbs and flows in terms of who has leverage and power. It’s a very competitive market for talent, but also a market where ownership is no longer what it used to be.

If you created a successful TV show 10 years ago, that could be very valuable and life-changing. Those opportunities are not as readily available today. If you were a participant in a huge movie that grossed $1 billion, you could make life-changing money. These days, those opportunities are capped significantly.

I don’t know that the experience of starring in a Netflix show or movie is as rewarding as the old way of doing it. Releasing it in a theater and having that experience. Some are fine with it, and others feel it’s not quite as fulfilling.

Why not?

Even though you could argue more people see it, they don’t see it in that moment. It’s not a part of the zeitgeist — with some exceptions. There isn’t the same publicity machine or urgency of people lining up to see it.

Social media has given many of your clients additional power. But the studios and entertainment companies are now part of bigger companies than ever before. Do your clients have more or less power than when you started?

Ultimately, these companies are huge and will prosper, and their success or failure won’t be built around any star. But having access to great stuff will still be important to them. Because three to five companies are fighting it out, it gives each star relative power in those moments. The scale of those companies is one of the reasons I think agencies need to get bigger, and why we have grown.

It seems like agencies are in crisis at the moment. Will the expansion ever restart?

If the coronavirus didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be in a conservative mode. The industry was expanding rapidly. Our business was growing incredibly. Our revenue was growing incredibly.

Corona hit, and suddenly we all got rocked. I don’t think it’s a permanent state. 

As UTA has gotten bigger, you are now overseeing a lot of different business units. Do you still represent clients on a daily basis?

I do work with a handful of clients, and am part of teams — people I’ve repped for a while or where I can bring a unique point of view. It’s not the way it used to be where I’m the sole or primary day-to-day agent.

Do you miss that?

There are aspects I really miss — clients I love talking to, clients whose work I love.

With music, I’ve had the opportunity to be at the side of the stage for amazing moments. I’ll never forget being at Glastonbury when Muse played, or when Christine and the Queens did their first performance there.

You are the biggest talent agency to reach a deal with the Writers Guild of America. You had sued them. They had called you criminals. What changed?

We negotiated with them for a while and finally got to a place where we could make a deal we felt we could live with. 

You spoke earlier about life-changing money. Jerry Seinfeld is still getting paid for his show. But those kinds of deals are not available anymore. What is the avenue for a big producer to make that kind of money now?

Streamers have all the information, and they don’t share it. They know what’s valuable to them and don’t share it with artists.

But over time, that will change. Over time, artists or artist representatives will request, require or demand there be more transparency and some compensation related to the success of that show and how well it streams.  Or artists will demand that rights to a show revert to them.

What’s your first stop when this is all over?

Hopefully, Staples Center for a basketball game.

We are going through something right now that will change our society for the better. It’s painful and frightening. It’s real. I don’t think we go back from here in terms of issues on equality and social justice.

There will be an incredible explosion of art around it that will drive conversation and excitement. As horrible as this is, I really believe we’ll come out the other side.

(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity).  

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.