Ferial Haffajee
The cocktail of a showbiz doyenne, an African princess and a struggle lawyer can only yield interesting results. This combination has seen African Media Entertainment (AME) cause quite a stir on the stock exchange and in the entertainment and film industries.
From their offices at the MTN Sundome outside Johannesburg, David Dison (AME’s executive director and a former struggle lawyer) and Merle McKenna (chief executive of the subsidiary company AME Events) are effusive about entertainment as a new growth industry and profess the arts need not be a profession practised for the love of it alone.
Optimism is almost incumbent upon the two who lead a company that has just invested millions in the multi-purpose, space-age Dome complex and a range of related companies. But the stock market likes the AME recipe.
The share price has more than doubled since its maiden listing at 40c a share in December and investors are punting it as a worthwhile buy.
McKenna started her own company, Pro Touch, at 20 years old and turned events management into an art. The opening and closing ceremonies of the 1995 Rugby World Cup were her crowning moments; but she and her team have given “the touch” to numerous other events.
The dynamo has helped make South Africa feel less like a dorp through the use of high- tech laser shows, massive firework displays and the chutzpah to take a chance and invest in big name acts, instead of some of the has-beens and hand-me-downs that have graced our shores since 1994. She also brought Zenani Dlhamini Mandela into the company as AME’s protocol events co-ordinator – a title which translates into making sure the big names like her daddy come along to mega-events.
McKenna invited Diana Ross to perform at the opening of the Dome last week and other big names at the steel and glass structure expected soon include Michael Flatley, Luther Vandross and Bryan Adams, though the first major performance last week showed up the fault lines in sound and seating at the facility which they lease and will soon share with the Tsogo Sun casino.
McKenna also helped to negotiate AME’s acquisition of Big Concerts, which most recently staged the U2 concert and had a role in the Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Tina Turner and Phil Collins tours.
Through rapid acquisition, AME has cornered the events market. It also owns a company called Events Hire which hires out sound and other equipment for mega- events. Call it a monopoly if you like, but at a time when “bigger is better” again rules the economy, Dison says this is “a complete turnkey service”.
AME and Primedia are the only media companies listed on the JSE and the two have provided a healthy boost to the local film industry by buying up companies that were big on talent but short of bucks.
Primedia bought Jeremy Nathan’s Catalyst Films while Roberta Durrant chose to take her Penguin Films into the AME fold and there is talk of joint film ventures between the two companies.
Penguin has produced a number of successful television series including Future Imperfect and S’Good S’Nice, though Dison says: “We still don’t have locally generated content.”
Penguin will produce a televised version of Madam and Eve which is likely to broadcast on e.tv, the new free television service.
AME will for now not acquire direct ownership of broadcast media, but has fashioned itself as a content provider. It also owns two other film companies, Moonlighting and Vicious Funk productions, which produces youth programmes. The company has the capital to buy into radio production houses.
“We’re talking to a range of players in each of the divisions,” says Dison, adding that: “Independent producers are at a premium. But until now they haven’t been able to name their price.”
The company is also keen on print media interests; it made a pitch for the Mail & Guardian, Finance Week and Leadership magazine, but those plans have been put on ice and it is clear that it will increasingly grow its niche in the entertainment industry.
AME is a company reaping the profits of the new South Africa. It could have not have worked in a country isolated by cultural sanctions or in one where broadcasting was the monopoly of the state because it relies on selling its products to the SABC and the other newer broadcasters.
“We can only do it in an open society,” says Dison.