The chutzpah kids: Green, Branson and Dyke.

When money and power aren't enough, some nerve comes in handy

The extrovert fought a state airline, the affable one battled the establishment and the introvert had run-ins with everyone. Thus we can describe the exploits of Britain's media enfant prodige et terrible, three yuppies whose average age is under 47.

Take publicity-shy Michael Green, who The Economist described as "the most powerful man in British television." An outsider until recently, he now controls 30 per cent of ITV advertising revenues. If his strong cigar smoke doesn't kill you, his reputed foul temper will.

Then there is extroverted bloke Richard Branson, who after winning a $1 billion suit against British Airways is now in a way to win some major entertainment companies.

Completing the troika is affable chap Greg Dyke, described by the Independent as climbing from "pushy, penniless researcher to CEO of LWT [London Weekend Television]." Ousted at LWT when it was taken over in a bitterly contested bid by Granada, Dyke recently resurfaced as CEO of Pearson Television. Declared Dyke: "I've got to build a media company." So he shelled out some $279 million and purchased Australia's Grundy Worldwide, telling the Independent, "British television is very parochial."

Video, Age took a closer look at these three "kids" to find out what they're up to.

Richard Branson: The Dealmaker 

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? No, it's Richard Branson, the 45-year-old British entrepreneur whose flair for self-promotion has turned his company, Virgin, into an icon of success.

It was with this same panache that Branson, who has been known to scale skyscrapers for a publicity stunt, this summer snapped up MGM U.K., the country's biggest cinema chain, out from under the noses of rivals with equal experience in the communications sector.

Rival bidders for the MGM cinemas Carlton Communications and the Rank Organization were reported to be bitter about their loss following one of the most aggressive acquisition battles in corporate history.

Not surprisingly, Virgin has become a high-profile international brand name that Branson has bestowed on a vast range of past and present holdings. They include Virgin Atlantic Airways, the Virgin Megastore retail music chain, the Virgin Music Group (a record company sold to Thorn EMI), Virgin Hotels, Virgin Interactive Entertainment (the majority of which is owned by Blockbuster Entertainment Corp.), Virgin Cola, Virgin Vodka and even Virgin Direct Personal Financial Service, not to mention his interests in various restaurants.

So what are Branson's ambitions in the audiovisual entertainment business? Through the Virgin Communications division, managed by his brother-in-law Robert Devereux, he has acquired the MGM cinema chains to consolidate and expand his interests in the film and TV business.

The Virgin Group, with U.S. investment group TPG Partners, acquired the MGM U.K. cinema chain from the financially troubled Credit Lyonnais bank for $310 million. The chain consists of 98 traditional movie theaters and 18 multiplexes and had revenues of more than $174 million in 1994, accounting for 25 per cent of U.K box office receipts. Although analysts claim the price paid was 25 per cent higher than the chain's actual value, Virgin plans to recoup its investment by building more multiplex sites. These (and the existing MGM multiplexes) could become Virgin entertainment centers where moviegoers would be able to buy Virgin merchandise, Virgin Record CD's and videos, books from Virgin Publishing, Virgin Cola and interactive entertainment in virtual reality arcades.

In addition, Branson can now revive the links he had with the film business when he owned Scala, a leading arthouse cinema in London, through Virgin Vision.

Branson has also had his eye on broadcasting, launching Europe's first 24-hour music video channel before MTV Europe arrived on the scene. Virgin invested in the now defunct BSB, the U.K.'s first direct broadcast satellite TV network, and later in Super Channel, the pan-European entertainment network. Currently the group is part of a consortium-which includes Paramount Television-bidding for a Channel 5 license to operate Britain's fifth and last terrestrial TV network. And let us not forget Virgin Radio, the UK's first national commercial rock station.

Virgin did not hesitate to go public when it suspected that someone associated with a rival Channel 5 bidder had used false pretenses to obtain confidential information about Virgin's bid.

Virgin Atlantic Airways also sued rival British Airways for more than $1 billion in the U.S. and U.K. courts. In a David versus Goliath public slanging match, BA was accused of poaching Virgin passengers by using information in Virgin computers. This so-called "Dirty Tricks Case" was settled out of court in the U.K. The U.S. case, about takeoff and landing slots, continues.

Today, Branson, who began his first business venture as a student in 1968, is said to be worth more than $1 billion personally, and his company reported sales in excess of $2 billion last year alone.

Michael Green: The Broadcaster

Michael Green must be the most reclusive media chief in Britain. In a business where egos soar, extroverts tend to rule while the demure stay in the background. Green, however, has broken the rules.

The 48-year-old chairman of Carlton Communications, Green is currently one of Britain's most powerful TV moguls. Yet one never sees him being interviewed about his business plans on TV or in print. Not surprisingly, a planned biography of him by one of the Financial Times' top journalists is unauthorized.

Green entered the media scene relatively late, in 1983. He began building his empire in the domestic market by buying post-production and broadcast facility houses in London. His acquisitions of editing suite Transvideo, vision mixing operator Abekas and the commercials house Moving Pictures Company were as low key as the man himself. Carlton floated on the London stock exchange around this time.

Industry analysts began to take notice in 1988, when Carlton took over the film processing group Technicolor in a $723 million deal. But that wasn't enough for Michael Green. TV programming and broadcasting were sexier businesses; he wanted a big share of them and nothing was going to stop him.

The first significant break came with the successful bid for Carlton TV, the London weekday TV channel, in 1991. Then last year, shortly after government regulations made it possible, Carlton Communications took over Central Television, the very profitable independent broadcaster for the U.K.'s Midlands region.

His global ambitions were confirmed in July when he bought a 24 per cent stake in France Tele Films (FTF), a new French cable and satellite TV channel.

The majority shareholder in FTF, which is scheduled for launch this December, is public broadcaster France Television. There is also some investment from La Sept/ARTE, the French-German satellite cultural channel, and from U.S. film producer Regency. FTF will be cable-delivered, with plans for direct-to-home digital satellite transmission in the works.

Carlton's involvement in a French-language venture raised a few eyebrows. The international media industry, however, is up for grabs. The 1980s trend of expanding solely through acquisition has ended; new entrants in the arena must look for new opportunities.

This also explains the rumors of Carlton's plans to start a TV network in the emerging Asia market. The company is believed to be negotiating with Modi Enterprises, an Indian media group, about forming a joint venture to launch a satellite channel in India.

In addition, Carlton has a stake in the national breakfast TV channel GMTV; in Meridian, the commercial broadcaster for South and Southeast England; and in Independent Television News, the influential national and international news service provider. Green is chairman at ITN and director at GMTV and Reuters Holdings.

Today the group also includes post-production operations in Los Angeles and New York.

These shrewd tactics are generating Green some rich rewards. Carlton's pre-tax profits for the year ending September 30 rose 51 per cent to [pounds]190 million, and turnover increased 40 per cent to [pounds]1.4 billion. Carlton TV and Central are to spend an estimated [pounds]100 million on new programming this year. Some of the company's library of programs will be used in overseas broadcast ventures, including FTF.

Whatever else happens, Green's profile in the TV business is rising higher by the day. He also hungers for a slice of the cinema industry, as illustrated by his reported disappointment at failing to acquire MGM U.K., the country's biggest cinema chain.

Greg Dyke: The Producer

If you want a U.K. TV executive with the Midas touch for popular programs, look no further than Greg Dyke. Thanks to his appointment this year as Chairman and chief executive of Pearson Television, his vast experience in entertainment TV programming will soon be felt around the world.

For no sooner had he settled into his new office than he astounded the industry by acquiring Grundy Worldwide, the international TV entertainment and drama programming producer and distributor.

The $279 million acquisition in March placed Pearson TV, until then a fledgling player in the marketplace, firmly on the international map.

The move also added weight to the theory that Dyke wants to turn the company into a program production specialist instead of an aspiring broadcaster. Industry sources claim that his plans for Pearson include selling its stake in British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), one of Europe's biggest pay-TV networks.

These important decisions are being made by the same man who once demonstrated his intuition about viewers' tastes by making an animated rat famous in every TV home in Britain.

After an impressive career at London Weekend Television (LWT), the capital's weekend broadcast channel, in 1983 Dyke was appointed editor-in-chief of TV-am, the former breakfast TV service. The struggling TV-am needed guidance. Dyke introduced Roland Rat, a wacky and zany rodent puppet as one of the presenters, and the station's ratings began to soar. He recognized that the breakfast TV audience wanted not only to be informed through news, weather and traffic reports; they wanted to be entertained.

A year later Dyke joined Television South, another regional broadcaster on the Independent Television (ITV) network, as director of Programs. His success there prompted LWT to invite him back as their director of Programs. By 1991, he was group chief executive and LWT reigned as the number one light entertainment programmer.

Affable and down to earth, Dyke easily made friends in a cutthroat industry. He could do no wrong and was soon chairman of the ITV Association Council and of GMTV, the breakfast TV station that replaced TV-am in 1992 - all in addition to his LWT post.

He was a busy man merrily getting on with his duties when the powerful Granada Television, the ITV regional broadcaster for Northeast England, made a hostile takeover bid for LWT in early 1994. The resultant job losses included Greg Dyke's. He became the most famous, and rich, unemployed Brit.

As everyone expected, he enjoyed himself during the break and landed on his feet in the top job at Pearson Television, a subsidiary of the increasingly dynamic Pearson plc, which owns the Financial Times newspaper.

This meant that the 48-year-old Dyke, who immediately restructured Pearson TV, would preside over wholly owned production companies Thames Television and Financial Times Television. Pearson controls 14 per cent of BSkyB; 15 per cent each of satellite channels U.K. Gold and U.K. Living; and 10 per cent of Hong Kong TV station TVB. It recently sold a 14 per cent stake in Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television (Y-TTV), another ITV regional broadcaster. There is also the 45 per cent Pearson owns - in a joint venture with public broadcaster the BBC - in European satellite TV networks. Pearson also owns 6 per cent of SES, the Luxembourg company that operates the Astra broadcast satellites.

Dyke's decision to grab Grundy was astute for various reasons. The Australian company, famous for its soap opera Neighbours, is one of the most prolific producers of programming in the world, creating more than 30 hours every week. It is also envied for its skill at selling its program formats worldwide.

But to what extent does Dyke really want Pearson to concentrate on production and renounce its broadcast interests? He wasted no time in selling Pearson's stake in Y-TTV (at a profit of [pounds]40 million), saying that the investment was no longer strategic to Pearson Television's future. It is also rumored that he will soon sell his share in BSkyB, at a profit.

But it is not that straightforward. Pearson is spearheading one of four consortia bidding for the U.K.'s Channel 5 terrestrial TV broadcast franchise. This indicates that Dyke still wants to be a broadcaster. But he would rather control the ship, as he would if Pearson won Channel 5, than be a mere deck hand on someone else's boat, as he was with Y-TTV.