A small, quiet figure is loitering in the corner of Emap
Performance’s reception. His understated presence belies the fact that he is the chief executive of the outfit, but then that’s typical of Tim Schoonmaker. He may have some of the brashest Emap brands under his remit, but the old fogey suit and soft American accent seem at odds with his surroundings.
It takes a while before Schoonmaker finds a place where we can settle to conduct this interview, leaving the impression that he likes to consider
things carefully before he makes a decision.
David Arculus, the chairman of IPC Magazines, who gave Schoonmaker his first job at Emap as the head of its venture Micronet, confirms this
trait: ’He’s quite cerebral. He spends quite a lot of time thinking
through issues, but my experience of Tim is that he normally comes up
with the right solution.’
Schoonmaker doesn’t appear to be an obvious groover, but the fact that
he has a music studio in his home testifies to a strong interest in
music.
Tom Toumazis, the managing director of Emap Advertising, reveals that
Schoonmaker has ’a remarkably good voice’.
Bearing this in mind, you understand why his face lights up when he
talks about Emap’s strong stable of brands and the opportunities to
extend them across many platforms.
His current focus is on Kiss TV which, after much talk of it becoming a
channel, is finally launching this month on Sky Digital. Previously,
Kiss TV existed as a series of programmes on Live TV and, after that,
Granada Sky Broadcasting.
Schoonmaker explains why it has taken a while to create a Kiss TV
channel.
’Two things have changed. First, Sky Digital exists, so the costs of
setting up the channel are much less. Second, we started off thinking
Kiss TV was about making programmes, but our music channel, The Box, has shown that people want music and videos. With Kiss there was a lot of talk.’
With the explosion of digital channels, Emap realised it could be on to
a good thing and intends to launch a rock channel by the end of the
year. Plans to launch Magic TV have foundered because Schoonmaker
believes there is ’not enough new music’ in this particular market to
make it effective.
The restructuring of Emap into four market-focused networks with
cross-media interests clearly suits him. ’Performance is the most
perfectly formed trainset within Emap,’ he enthuses. ’It’s the place
where everyone expects the network pay-off to happen fastest.’ His music network houses brands such as Q, Smash Hits, Magic, Kiss, the Big City Network and The Box, as well as managing events and online
ticketing.
Schoonmaker’s mission for Performance is to extend core brands across as many platforms as possible. ’We have too many brands in Emap. We need to have hero brands and grow revenue in new areas. We can’t just talk about radio or magazines anymore.’
To this end, his next focus will be turning Smash Hits into a broader
entity. ’Smash Hits is our hero brand for pop but the problem is a lot
of people see it as a teen brand. We’d like to have one brand in the pop
market but you have to be careful if you rebrand The Box as Smash Hits
because it wouldn’t work very well. So we have a project to stretch
Smash Hits beyond teens.’
Despite being at Emap since 1983, Schoonmaker maintains that he has no real desire to move. ’I’ve reinvented myself three or four times.
There’s a relaxed ambition at Emap which I like.’
When Micronet was sold to BT, Schoonmaker became the head of strategic planning, looking at acquisitions for Emap, before running one of its regional newspaper groups in Sussex. Keeping his eye on growth
opportunities, he realised the potential of radio and, with the winning
of the Kiss FM licence in 1991, added a vital new string to Emap’s
bow.
Apart from launching the UK’s first premium-rate phone call service in
1985 (which led to him being hauled up in front of Emap’s then chairman
Frank Rogers, to explain why the service was being implicated in a porn
scandal story in The Mirror), Schoonmaker’s course at Emap has been
pretty smooth.
’I think I can get away with a lot because people see me as an
Amercian,’ he says.
.jpg)
.jpg)