M+E Daily

Steve Brown, the longtime president and CEO of Cinram International, has left the company, the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA) has learned.

First coming on as head of the company in June 2009, Brown stayed on board with Cinram after Technicolor purchased the North American disc manufacturing and distribution assets of Cinram in late 2015, for upwards of $44 million.

During his tenure, Brown was appointed to the company’s board of trustees, restructured the executive management team, helped increase the company’s global margins, oversaw the expansion of Cinram into new products and services, and helped guide the company into the digital realm, with the acquisition of 1K Studios.

And from the start of his tenure to the end, Brown has seen a lot of changes in how the replication side of the media and entertainment industry operates.

“On reflection, it’s been a really, really interesting seven years,” Brown told MESA. “When I look at where we are today compared to where we were when I started, the similarities are amazing. Everyone’s talking about UHD. Back then it was about Blu-ray.

“As we stand today, there’s probably underutilized capacity available all over the world for Blu-ray, and now we’re moving up to UHD. I think there should be a lot of lessons learned from that.”

When Brown first came on board, DVD was king of the home entertainment hill, but very quickly, with the high-def format war wrapped up, studios began latching on to Blu-ray Disc. And, in a way, the expansion into combo packs, and then digital copy and UltraViolet, hurt home entertainment, Brown argues.

“All we’ve really done as an industry is play into the hands of the behemoth digital guys, and we’ve also just confused the consumer,” he said. “A consumer goes into the store and sees [multiple SKUs of the same title]. And they may not understand what’s what, other than that Blu-ray is high definition. I think we, as an industry, have not performed well in simplifying the marketplace.

“Things like Blu-ray and UHD going forward could have a higher trajectory if the studios were all on the same page, with formats and digital. Because when consumers see an industry in flux, they’ll just wait back until it sorts itself out, which they did with VHS and Betamax. Ultimately what you do is cannibalize your own marketplace.”

Brown reflected on how quickly things changed for Cinram: earlier in 2015, it was Cinram rumored to be the one acquiring one of its major replication competitors, Sony DADC or Technicolor. It would have marked a major turnaround for a company that had been No. 1 in the industry, up until Warner Bros. left in 2010 for Technicolor.

In late 2012, privately held investment firm Najafi Cos. bought Cinram for a reported $80 million, and oversaw Cinram acquiring online video technology company Saffron Digital from HTC Corp. and JVC Americas Corp., JVC’s video game software division.

“I think the industry knows that at one point, we were the odds on favorite to be the acquirer, and we took a run at that,” Brown said. “Ultimately we were on the sell side.”

Brown added that he will be sticking around the media industry, outside of home entertainment, “but who knows, I may come back. I’ve been getting a lot of nice calls from inside the industry. It makes a professional feel good when there’s acceptance in the marketplace. I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing people.”

One of those people praising Brown’s tenure at Cinram was Ben Higgins, who worked under Steve Brown at Cinram from 2010 to 2014 as first the SVP of business development and innovation, helping lead the acquisition of Saffron Digital, and later as the president of 1K Studios. Ben now serves as the GM of space150, a digital agency, that acquired 1K Studios from Cinram in 2015.

“Steve came to the industry as an outsider but quickly made a name for himself as an executive that wanted to solve the industry’s challenges through solid business acumen,” Higgins said. “While the home entertainment industry continues to find its legs in the 21st century, Steve’s platform for waste elimination and strategic consolidation will certainly continue long after his departure from the industry.”