A Capital Investment:
A Broadcast Empire
ALLISON KAPLAN SOMMER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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•
aby Rosenberg, the man-
of
director
aging
Jerusalem Capital Studios,
likes to measure the
growth of his company in square
meters. It's no wonder: he has an
impressive real estate story to
tell.
When Mr. Rosenberg joined
the company in 1979, his job in-
terview was conducted in a small
three-room Jerusalem apart-
ment. By the end of 1995, the
company will occupy more than
10,000 square meters. Most of
that space is located inside the
company's large white flagship
building on Jerusalem's Jaffa
Road, a building that for the for-
eign broadcast media news out-
lets, is the center of the universe.
You name it, they are there:
ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN from
the United States, Britain's BBC,
Canada's CBC, additional
networks from assorted
other European and Asian
countries, and the televi-
sion outlets of the Associ-
ated Press and Reuters
news services.
Next door a JCS facility
houses Channel Two's
news studios.
Mr. Rosenberg winces
at the use of the word "mo-
nopoly," but there is little
if any serious competition
for JCS's services as far as
foreign-news outlets are
concerned. What competi-
tion there was virtually
collapsed four years ago
during the Gulf War. JCS was
able to provide unlimited
amounts of satellite time, mak-
ing it possible for the companies
to send the all-important video
back to their home countries, a
feat their competitors were un-
able to match. Over the first two
weeks of the war, JCS was av-
eraging 200 satellite feeds per
day.
But despite JCS's dominance
in the field, Mr. Rosenberg says
there is no time to rest on its lau-
rels. "We are competing against
ourselves. And that is even worse
than competing against others.
When we had the competition it
was so good to hear people say:
`Thank God you were here, we
just came from over there; it was
so bad!' Even if we weren't per-
fect, we were so much better than
the others, it really made our
lives easier.
But right now there is nobody,
or very little to compare with us.
"Listen, our clientele are the most
Allison Sommer is a writer for the
Jerusalem Post.
powerful entities in this field.
Whether or not there is competi-
tion, they have standards, and
unless you live up to their stan-
dards, you are in big trouble. And
they would create an alternative
to us like this," he says as he
snaps his fingers. "It would be
a matter of a phone call."
While Mr. Rosenberg speaks
in the conference room in the
company's Tel Aviv office/studios,
a loud soundtrack from an ad be-
ing edited in the next room blares
forth. "I gave up my office space
here a long time agc," he says,
apologizing for the noise.
The studios are currently
crowded into two floors of Tel
Aviv's Pyramid office building.
Before the year is up, they will
move into a more spacious five-
story building double the present
size. Mr. Rosenberg seems born
to the TV business, with his pol-
ished appearance — tar younger
than his 41 years — and his gre-
garious style.
So it is surprising to hear that
he got into it by accident. After
studying economics and business
administration at Tel Aviv Uni-
versity, he went to work for Dun
and Bradstreet, assessing local
companies. It was in the course
ofassessing the infant JCS, that
Mr. Rosenberg impressed the
managing director, who offered
him a job as administrative di-
rector.
"I didn't take him seriously be-
cause at the time I thought he
was trying to be nice to me while
I was writing my report, and I
thought it wasn't ethical. But
then, later, he approached me
again. I liked the fact that it was
a new company and that my ter-
ritory was going to be as big as I
wanted to define it. I was fasci-
nated by the fact that I would be
dealing with international jour-
nalists and high-tech satellite
communications."
The fact that JCS more than