John Malone to be new entity's controlling shareholder
Ascent Media Group, the wholly owned subsidiary of John Malone's Discovery Holdings that encompasses a collection of postproduction and media services businesses, has launched a new brand while significantly restructuring its U.K. operations.
Newly named Ascent 142 will combine AMG's London-based postproduction units One Post and St. Anne's Post, DVD unit Stream and media-management services. With the move, the post and DVD brand names will be retired. The company has invested more than 2 million pounds in the facility and new technical capabilities.
The change comes as Discovery is preparing to spin off AMG along with Discovery Networks into an independently traded company. Malone will be the entity's controlling shareholder.
Jose Royo, who was named AMG CEO in February, restructured AMG's corporate divisions and senior management in May.
Ascent 142 -- named for its 60,000 square foot, 142 Wardour St. address in London's Soho district -- will be led by Simon Constable, vp operations; David Barrett, senior director business development; and Adrian Bull, chief technology officer. They will report to Richard Andrews, AMG senior vp media services.
Of the merging of the businesses, Constable said: "Because the companies were independently managed, it didn't really lend themselves well to being able to move jobs around and share work and not worry about revenue. We decided to put it all in one location and essentially remove those old-fashioned barriers."
The consolidation also allows Ascent to stay strong in a volatile market. "It's an expensive building, and having the services under one roof you kind of have to do that to be efficient and be able to make money," Constable said.
The investment in new technology includes two newly built digital intermediate (DI) suites, which will center on da Vinci's Resolve R350 color grading systems, as well as two Autodesk Smoke post systems; a Bright SAN (storage area network); two Arri scanners; and two Arri film recorders. The company also has a network in place that allows grading information and other data to be securely shared between London and the U.S.
MGM/Sony's "Quantum of Solace" is the first scheduled DI project for the new installation. Rob Pizzey is the colorist on the project.
Ascent entities based in London that will not be affected by the restructuring are VFX house Rushes, subtitling company Visiontext, Soho Images laboratory and Ascent's Network Services businesses.
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