Pinnacle

Carlos Cisneros Takes His Communications Empire Global

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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BEVERLY SCHUCH, HOST (voice-over): South Beach, Miami, where the nights are hot and the days are hotter. This tropical town sways to rhythms and rules of its own and is quickly becoming the entertainment launch pad to Latin America. And that's exactly what Carlos Cisneros is counting on. The 34-year-old scion of Venezuelan industrialists, Carlos is heading up one of the fastest growing media companies this side of the equator.

His company, Cisneros Television Group, is taking his family's communications empire global with such brand name partners like Playboy.

(on camera): I heard this described as, Cisneros TV Group, as an experiment initially.

CARLOS CISNEROS, CHAIRMAN & CEO, CISNEROS TELEVISION GROUP: The experiment was can we set up shop to deliver high quality content for the Latin American audience which is born with the intention of reaching the Latin American audience first, not the United States audience and then translating it into Spanish, not a European audience and then putting it into Latin America. This started in Latin America with the idea that if it was successful enough, if the quality was just as good as anything being done anywhere else in the world we would take it out of Latin America into the United States, into Europe, into Asia.

SCHUCH (voice-over): His content supply nicely coincides with an overwhelming demand for all things Latin.

(on camera): Do you understand the international phenomenon of Latin pop?

CISNEROS: I understand the international phenomenon of Latin entertainment period and Latin pop is part of it. When you look at the numbers of Hispanics living in the United States and you understand that it's 20 plus million, sometimes you can hear numbers as high as 30, when you look at the fact that Spanish is so commonly spoken, when you look at the fact that it's been 20 years in the making, because this didn't happen overnight, this approximation towards Latin culture, this equalizing of Latin and American cultures and entertainment has taken quite a bit of time to get here. SCHUCH (voice-over): Unlike Carlos, who has had a meteoric career funded by deep family pockets and driven by the memory of his father. Television is in his father. Television is in his blood. His grandfather Diego, after immigrating from Cuba, bought Venivision (ph) and turned it into Venezuela's primary TV network. Carlos is extending the family empire by developing a dozen pay TV channels in five years. He's bringing TV to the world, Latin style.

As befits a sexy guy in a sexy town, Carlos is proudest of the reported $100 million plus partnership he brokered with Playboy to create Playboy TV International.

CISNEROS: Part of what I do in work is be creative. It always is a constant that what we do, what we strive to do is what an artist like this does so well. He expresses it better than I can possibly imagine, but it's what we try to do every day when we create television.

SCHUCH: Carlos grew up surrounded by magnificent art and architecture. His uncle Gustavo owns one of the most impressive private collections in the world. Along with well known South Beach architects John Canaan (ph) and Terry Riley (ph), Carlos helped design CTG's arty and open studios overlooking South Beach. Works from the family art collection decorate the walls.

CISNEROS: We wanted something which was very new, very modern, very young. We did not want to be in an office that looked anything like anybody else's office.

SCHUCH: With the newly renovated home on the exclusive Palm Island and a business estimated to be worth a billion dollars, life at the moment is sweet for Cisneros. But 18 years ago, Carlos experienced life at its worst. During a family trip to the Amazon, 17-year-old Cisneros lost his father in a drowning accident.

CISNEROS: I am sure that it shaped a lot of who I am today and how I see things and I'm sure that if we use the word drive, a lot of the drive comes from there because I was aware of what he was achieving. I was aware of where he was going. I was aware of how good he was at creating new businesses and I wanted to be able to do just as well.

SCHUCH: When PINNACLE returns, how Carlos picked up the pieces of his life and is fulfilling his imperative to achieve. Carlos Cisneros, young master deal maker and CEO of the Cisneros Television Group, is next on PINNACLE.

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SCHUCH (voice-over): Carlos Cisneros' lineage tells a story of adventure and ambition. From his father, he inherited a love of Latin America, while his mother represents the exotic Near East. CISNEROS: She's an extraordinarily kind, wise, intuitive woman. She's Persian so I think that from her I get the centuries and centuries of strategy, of fighting, of conquest, of culture that the Persians have.

SCHUCH: A native Venezuelan, Carlos spent his first eight years in Brazil and when he returned to his homeland in 1973, it didn't exactly feel like home.

CISNEROS: During those first eight years, I very much, I think like anybody who knows that he's Venezuelan or knows that he's from someplace else, idealizes it.

SCHUCH (on camera): Didn't you say you didn't even speak Spanish till you were like...

CISNEROS: It's true. I got to Venezuela at age eight. All I spoke was English, French and Portuguese and everybody in school kept on looking at us, my sisters and myself saying where did you guys come from, you know? What is up with your accent and why can't you speak?

SCHUCH: What was your first language then?

CISNEROS: Portuguese.

SCHUCH: Portuguese.

CISNEROS: Portuguese, and I was going to an American school in Brazil so English was second.

SCHUCH (voice-over): Carlos then came to the U.S. to be educated and carefully groomed to eventually assume his place in the largest privately held company in Latin America. He attended the exclusive Loomis Chafee Academy (ph) in Connecticut, but if his life was privileged, no one disputes he has earned his place in the boardroom. Hard work is a family trait passed on to Carlos from his grandfather and his father. Unfortunately, it is one of the last lessons Carlos would learn from his dad. He was just 17 on a family trip to the Amazon in 1983 when his father tragically drowned. It is a memory seared in his heart.

CISNEROS: I was drowning and he jumped into the water without giving it a second's thought in order to save me in the Amazon in Kanaima (ph), which are these very beautiful large falls that have an extraordinary under current. I got caught in the under current and my father saved me.

Oddly enough, and I imagine that this happens every day many times to many people, it is a source of strength for me. It always has been. I have been able to grow up always knowing that his love for me was extraordinary and that is a very powerful thing. He died trying to save me, which I think is where the push and the propel forward comes from. It's not a sense of guilt. I think I'm quite clear with that. But it is a, it is a real sense of needing to give something back. Here is someone that I thought was so extraordinary saving me and giving his life so I have to give something back that's extraordinary.

SCHUCH (on camera): What do you miss most about him?

CISNEROS: My very last conversation with my father I think was probably the first conversation that we had as friends. It happens, I suppose, in everybody's relationship where all of a sudden you go from being child and parent and you become friends. You can confide in each other and benefit from the experience. And my father, my father made me feel very certain at that moment that I would be able to benefit from his experience in life, in business. I think if I remember his words, he was certain that I would make mistakes but that he would try and avoid my making the same mistakes he had made, that if I was going to, they should be for lack of a better experience between the two of us. It was very much a we're a team conversation.

SCHUCH (voice-over): Family ties would save him and the same family spirit that helped create a media empire. After the accident, Carlos left his bottling job at the family business in Venezuela to attend the American University in Washington, D.C. He returned home with a degree in political science, but no real plan for the future. Sensing Carlos needed direction, his uncle Gustavo stepped in and offered him an array of jobs from the family's vast enterprises.

CISNEROS: The reason I got into television was very much over a lunch with my uncle Gustavo in his vacation home where he said here are three choices, three things that I think you'd be great at and you can begin exploring. I got what I wanted out of crating trucks at five in the morning and going to deliver soft drinks.

And so he said the first thing that comes to mind is a multi- year, multi-billion dollar mining operation in the Amazon. And let's see what else is in store. And he said there is a turnkey operation for snack foods that's going to be starting up in Caracas. And the third, which I don't think was coincidental that he left it for last, was and this little office that we need to open in Spain to represent all of our television product in what is surely going to be a very important market for us.

SCHUCH: The last option was important to the family. The Cisneros Group was in the process of becoming a media powerhouse and this venture in Spain proved Carlos was up to the task of international deal maker. His uncle sought Carlos' talents in the company's direct satellite business, a joint venture with several other media companies creating a pan-regional outlet for pay TV.

CISNEROS: That's how we got to the lunch conversation where he said, OK, direct TV is now up and running. We've got the possibility of delivering 170 channels. And before he could finish I said all right, can I put together some of those channels? Can we create inside the Cisneros Group a company whose sole purpose is going to be to create and deliver programming opportunities, programming and content cable channels?

SCHUCH (on camera): You had the distribution so you wanted to...

CISNEROS: To use it. SCHUCH: To use it for yourself.

CISNEROS: Again, very much following a tried and tested model in the United States. If you have the distribution, you should be able to control the content, or at least a part of it.

That's exactly right. So this is what inspired the painting at the end of the hall.

SCHUCH (voice-over): When PINNACLE returns, the colorful and inspirational influences that helped shape Carlos Cisneros.

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SCHUCH (voice-over): One painting on display in the Miami Art Museum reminds Carlos of his childhood in Venezuela. He was first mesmerized by the abstract paintings of Bryce Martin (ph) at the home of his aunt and uncle, Patty and Gustavo.

CISNEROS: It belongs in the library of their home and now we know the story about the artist being inspired by the stained glass windows in Chartra (ph). There's another painting in the back that has a story about how he was inspired that I think is exceptional, which again, allows you to see how this creativity happens and it's different for everybody. For us, it's perhaps on television or in ordinary situations outside. Well, you'll get to see how he got inspired.

SCHUCH (on camera): What does art do for you, though? What does it do for your soul and for your mind and?

CISNEROS: It reminds me that part of what I do in work is be creative. How far can we push the envelope? What can we come up with that is new?

SCHUCH: And objectively do you think television inspires people to creativity or kind of voids them of creativity?

CISNEROS: I am always inspired to creativity when I'm watching television. I don't know if that is particular to me, but I cannot turn it off. I like seeing it. I get some of my best ideas watching television. In my case, it's very inspiring. So this is what inspired the painting at the end of the hall, the Chinese dancers, which caused another great painting to be made.

Invisible, disappearing paint which allows everybody to say all right, now that we know that he was inspired, what does this inspire you to do?

SCHUCH: Let's see what it inspires you to do.

(voice-over): As a board member of the Miami Art Museum, he preserves and promotes art throughout the community. Art is important not only on the walls, but the walls themselves. Architecture has always been a signature of Miami and Carlos is continuing that tradition in South Beach with his loft space offices.

(on camera): What did you want this work space and the office part to represent?

CISNEROS: We wanted to make sure that it represented a circular hierarchy as opposed to a pyramidal hierarchy, that everybody who was part of CTG would feel very much an equal vote. And the easiest way to do that was, of course, give the best space to the widest amount of people possible. The second way was no doors. The third way was no full walls so that everybody would understand from the beginning there are no secrets. You're part of a team, you know everything that we know, we want your opinion.

SCHUCH (voice-over): That team is creating television with a global appeal. His first deal was with Hearst Entertainment to create Locomotion, an all animation channel. Shortly after, he struck a partnership with Playboy TV for Latin America with a Latino concept of beauty. According to the president of Playboy Entertainment Group, today that venture is worth $250 million.

CISNEROS: Playboy is the single most successful, most important man's brand in the world. We wanted the brand. We understand the power of brands, brand loyalty, marketing for brands. We understood that it was the single biggest treasure that had not been taken from the United States to Latin America because everybody assumed it's a very Catholic continent.

SCHUCH (on camera): Was there any controversy because you did this?

CISNEROS: We have always been very, very careful and this is something that we share with Playboy. They have a very tough standards and practices in place. We don't offer the channel to cable systems that do not have the technology to prevent the signal from going to homes where children, or parents don't have the ability to prevent children from seeing it.

SCHUCH (voice-over): When PINNACLE continues, Carlos Cisneros confronts his worst fears and enjoys his best adventures.

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SCHUCH (voice-over): Carlos came by his sense of adventure naturally. When he was only 14, Carlos' grandfather left Cuba for better opportunities in Venezuela. From his humble beginnings, Diego Cisneros went on to create the Cisneros Group of companies, today one of the largest privately held corporations in Latin America. Carlos has now imported the adventure to North America.

(on camera): How does sky diving fit into this?

CISNEROS: Only once.

SCHUCH: Me, too.

CISNEROS: Only once. It was a great experience and I don't think I want to do it again.

SCHUCH: How did you feel?

CISNEROS: I liked the flipping in the air. I thought that was extraordinary, just, to tell you the truth, going up on the plane and having the instructor tell me to sit on the edge and flip my legs over was very scary. It's against your instincts. So fine, you jump and then you begin to enjoy it because there's nothing you can do.

SCHUCH: But would this lead to like the next sort of challenge of pushing yourself? Well, you know, I was afraid of this so I did it?

CISNEROS: I'm going to tell you a secret, and I know that you and I haven't discussed this so you must be very intuitive, I'm scared of heights, which is the only reason I did this. I forced myself to do it thinking, well, once I do it, once I conquer it, it will be fine. No. I did it. I didn't conquer it and I don't want to do it again.

SCHUCH: You learn after a while that, you know, you can walk around puddles sometimes.

CISNEROS: Yeah, exactly.

SCHUCH (voice-over): Early on, Carlos sold telanovellas (ph), Spanish soap operas, for his uncle. It taught him a valuable lesson, no matter how different people and cultures are, there are more similarities.

(on camera): Taking this product, this Latin programming around the world to Japan and China and Poland and Scandinavia, what surprised you most about reactions and what's translated better than others?

CISNEROS: The biggest surprise was in Spain, a fellow who was at the head of TV-E, the nationally run largest Spanish network, and after a very polite presentation on our part, he listened, he nodded, he very quietly said, "Over my dead body will I air one of these novellas." We said thank you, we picked up, we went about selling the novellas in other Spanish networks. Everybody picked them up. They became extraordinarily successful.

I think that was perhaps the biggest lesson of my early years selling product internationally. I understood that I had to believe in the product no matter what, even if the person sitting across me, who knew his business very well and knew his market very well, didn't want to take it or understand it. I had to persevere in order to get it. And it's paid off. And I think it's how we've gotten our product into Turkey, into China, into non-traditional Spanish language territories.

SCHUCH: What is going to be the Latin program that is going to sweep mainstream America?

CISNEROS: When you find out, don't tell anybody. Come see me first. We'll make a deal, we will do it together and we will sweep mainstream America.

SCHUCH: Well, you've got a deal.

(voice-over): For now, Carlos is bringing mainstream America to the world. The American foul-mouthed rascals of "South Park" are just as funny in Argentina with the help of transcreation, a translation by CTG that's adding the right nuance for its audience.

(CLIP FROM SOUTH PARK)

SCHUCH: For the man who is quickly becoming the transcreator of culture for an entire generation, Carlos himself is a striking figure of youth, sex appeal and intelligence.

(on camera): You have been voted one of the 100 sexiest people, places and things in Miami according to "Miami Metro" magazine.

CISNEROS: All of this is flattering but, you know, the thing about being on lists is that you're on a list today and you're off the list tomorrow.

SCHUCH: Well, you're young, you're good looking and you're wealthy. I think you're just going to be on more and more lists. You know, these things feed on themselves after a while, Carlos.

CISNEROS: It's all fun and I think it's fun because I enjoy what I do. And if all of this comes from doing television, if all of this comes from doing the Cisneros Television Group, it's fine. I think, I have no complaints. I love doing what I do and it's all show business. I can't believe I get paid for it.

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