NEWS: Mark Shapiro Named CEO of Six Flags

[GAcoaster]

Interesting article today from the Associated Press

 

Mark Shapiro Named New CEO of Six Flags

Tuesday December 13, 8:06 pm ET

Former ESPN Programming Director Mark Shapiro Named New CEO of Six Flags

 

 

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Former ESPN programming director Mark Shapiro is the new president and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based theme-park giant Six Flags Inc., the company announced on Tuesday.

 

At a board meeting in New York, Six Flags directors voted to replace longtime CEO Kieran Burke with Shapiro and decided not to sell the company, Shapiro said in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press.

 

"The sale process has concluded," Shapiro said. "The board didn't see any bid that was attractive enough to proceed in that direction."

 

Shapiro said the board also voted to expand from seven to 10 members, adding former Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and Michael Kassan, an entertainment and media consultant.

 

"We're going to unleash a new creative energy from this company and we're going to make Six Flags a destination instead of a field trip," Shapiro said.

 

Shares of Six Flags fell 10 cents, or 1.4 percent, to close at $7.15 in trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

 

Interesting that they expanded the Board of Directors and included Harvey Weinstein. Strange choice, but Shapiro and Snyder must really be trying to build a MEDIA company out of this instead of just a theme park company.

 

Also, "We're going to unleash a new creative energy from this company and we're going to make Six Flags a destination instead of a field trip ," sounds like the hotel should be going through and then some! That is an encouraging bit of news.

[robbalvey]

Personally I think it's good that an "entertainment" company is going to be running Six Flags again.

 

Like I said, they might not make choices we want them to make, and there's always the possibility they could fuck it up worst than Premiere did, but man, you'd really HAVE to try hard to do that!!!

 

--Robb

[dougr]

There's a saying in Hollywood- "Don't f**k with the Weinsteins".

Michael Eisner found this out when he tried to stop Miramax from releasing Farenheit 9/11. The Weinsteins ended up buying back the picture for production cost.

Buying back your movie-20 million dollars.

Getting the best of Michael Eisner- priceless.

[MF310ryb]

As long as the parks get the attention they deserve and money is pumped into staffing levels. I think this could be a great turning point for SFI.

[robinschroder]

Ha ha! For a moment there I genuinely mistook Mark Shapiro for George Shapiro! As in the George Shapiro involved in the Seinfeld show!

 

It was George Shapiro that arranged for Jerry Seinfeld to meet with NBC - which resulted in Jerry talking about the meeting with Larry David and the show being born. The production company behind the show was run by George Shapiro and Howard West.

 

[Guest]

I read in the la times that they are trying to get papa John as an offical pizza of six flags

[GAcoaster]

Interesting article in the Washington Post:

 

New CEO's Theme for Six Flags Is Change

 

By Annys Shin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, December 15, 2005; Page D01

 

Mark Shapiro has been chief executive of Six Flags for a little over 24 hours, and already the ideas are flying. He's talking about collaborating with Microsoft on creating an Xbox "village." Maybe he'll ask "Nightmare on Elm Street" creator Wes Craven to design a haunted house for the chain's 29 theme parks.

 

Only a day earlier, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein -- along with former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and big-time media consultant Michael Kassan -- joined the Six Flags board.

 

New Six Flags chief executive Mark Shapiro, a Dan Snyder recruit, says the park must offer more than rides.

 

Shapiro and Redskins owner Daniel Snyder were voted on to the board on Dec. 1, after winning a three-month campaign for the support of Six Flags' shareholders. They had promised change if they succeeded in taking over the nation's second-largest theme park company. And change apparently is coming quickly.

 

Everything is up for review: The parks. Ad campaign star "Mr. Six." Even the sort of giant roller coasters Six Flags built its brand on.

 

And that's where the Xbox and Wes Craven come in.

 

"This industry relies too much on big rides. We have to diversify," Shapiro, who was recruited by Snyder to run Six Flags, said in an interview yesterday. "We have to focus on more concerts and more themed attractions."

 

Since launching his effort to gain control of Six Flags, Snyder has talked of perhaps using it to build an entertainment company. And Tuesday's board appointments lent further support to that ambition.

 

Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob recently launched their own movie studio, the Weinstein Co., after breaking away from Walt Disney Co. last year.

 

Kassan, who described himself as "a big fan of Dan Snyder and an old friend," is a veteran media buyer and has previously bought advertising for Walt Disney Co. and for Six Flags.

 

Kemp now heads his own consulting firm in Washington and sits on several corporate boards.

 

The new board members bring relevant experience and, just as importantly, fat Rolodexes, which provided some inspiration for Shapiro. Craven, for example, directed all three "Scream" films, which were produced by Dimension Films, the offshoot of Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax production company.

 

The Xbox is made by Microsoft, whose chairman, Bill Gates, is a major investor in Six Flags.

 

X-Box Village? Nightmare on Elm Street Haunted House? That's less teen oriented and more "family friendly"? Their definition of "Family" and mine must be COMPLETELY different!

 

_________________________________________________________________

 

Another from The Seattle Post Intelligencer

 

New Six Flags CEO plots big turnaround

Company has 30 parks, including Enchanted Village

 

By JOSH FINEMAN AND VIVEK SHANKAR

BLOOMBERG NEWS

 

Six Flags Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Shapiro says he plans to increase corporate sponsorships, improve customer service and make the company's amusement parks more appealing to families as part of his turnaround plan.

 

"Six Flags has to be a business focused on bringing more people to the turnstiles and to get them to spend more time at a park," Shapiro, 35, said in an interview Tuesday night after he was named CEO by Chairman and Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. "It's about the brand-building."

 

Snyder, the company's largest investor, ousted Chief Executive Kieran Burke Monday and named three new directors, solidifying control of Six Flags. Under Burke, attendance and revenue at Six Flags had fallen for two consecutive years. Investors praised the appointment of Shapiro, a former ESPN programmer/production executive who said he plans to step up marketing of the parks.

 

"These guys have a vision, and I'm very excited to be shareholders with them," said Diane Jaffe, a money manager at Trust Company of the West in New York, which owns Six Flag shares among its $8 billion in assets. "With Dan Snyder and Mark Shapiro they came and had a plan for the business. That gave a lot of investors conviction that these guys at least had a road map."

 

Shapiro said the company had abandoned plans for a sale because none of the bids "were high enough." Six Flags has never disclosed any purchase offers.

 

Six Flags is the world's second-largest theme-park operator. It owns and operates about 30 parks in North America including the Six Flags Enchanted Village park south of Seattle and Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., the country's largest regional theme park.

 

"The end of the company auction will likely immediately cause some Six Flags shareholders to take profits, as the stock has run up considerably since Dan Snyder began his campaign to take control in July 2005," Prudential Equity analyst Katherine Styponias wrote in a report today. She has an "underweight" rating on the stock.

 

The appointment of Shapiro brings to the helm of Six Flags a former top television executive known for his innovative programming at ESPN, the sports television network owned by Walt Disney Co. Shapiro joined Snyder's Red Zone LLC on Oct. 1 when he quit ESPN. Red Zone holds the Six Flags stake.

 

"We have a captive audience -- 35 million people who spend nine hours a day" at a Six Flags park, Shapiro said. The company may be able to boost attendance and revenue by adding corporate sponsors.

 

"What's the iPod tie-in, what's the Google tie-in?" asked Shapiro hypothetically, adding he is not pursuing alliances with Apple Computer Inc., which makes the iPod, or Google Inc.

 

Six Flags is in talks with Papa John's International Inc., though, about being the national pizza provider for all the company's amusement parks, Shapiro said in an interview Wednesday.

[shepp]

The idea that SFI will de-emphasize "big rides" is bad news for us, of course. The possibility that they'll get off their butts and innovate is not. And yes, a haunted house ride can be family-friendly - Curse of DarKastle appeals to a wider demogaphic than Kingda Ka.

 

However, at this point, I'm betting that IOA has little to worry about, in terms of either innovation or HHN.

[RRollergod]

Thank God if Dan Snyder owned it i would boy cot the place and egg all the parks!!!! (*simplifies answer* I would be Mad)