Jim Berger

Cake Boss

Dude, You're Screwed

The Line

Fill 1
Fill 1
February 19, 2015
In The Mix

Rocky Mountain Guy

Selling a show from the ski lift is just part of doing business for this reality TV pro.

Deanna Barnert

Reality TV trailblazer Jim Berger worked his way from the newsroom to the boardroom before taking the reins of his own company, High Noon Entertainment.

After nearly two decades of making what he calls “long-form journalism,” he’s still kicking up dust on the TV frontier.

On this particular day, he’s handling High Noon business in the Los Angeles office, while keeping an eye on the weather back home.

“I started the company almost 20 ago and have somehow managed to keep it going from Colorado,” he marvels. “As you’d imagine, I’m back and forth to Los Angeles and New York, but I can go skiing in Vail when they have a big snowfall.”

Which doesn’t hinder business at all. Berger takes calls on the ski lift and has even sold a show from up there.

In 2014 his company partnered with 20 networks and produced 30 series, specials and pilots. Its diverse slate includes franchises like TLC’s Cake Boss as well as Discovery’s Dude, You’re Screwed; Travel’s Trip Flip; HGTV’s Fixer Upper, and Reelz’s upcoming Branson Taxi.

“Whether it’s food, home renovation, games or a family business, what we love is story,” Berger says. “We’re open to all formats, but most of the networks I’m producing for want good characters, drama and storylines — without over-the-top or mean-spirited sensationalism.”

These days, authenticity is the trend. “We went through that phase where everything was almost scripted,” he recalls, “but it just didn’t work.”

Berger has made a career out of figuring out what works — and what to do when things stop working.

In the ‘80s, for example, he climbed from news cameraman and editor to head of production at Denver’s NBC affiliate, KUSA. His team made “those terrible car and furniture commercials for local TV.”

But Berger had other ambitions and realized he was perfectly poised: “I had my own crew and knew the advertisers already.”

A few (very) late-night shows later, he sent a letter directly to cable mogul John Malone and landed himself a new gig.

“It was the mid ‘90s, when TCI [Tele-Communications, Inc.] was rolling out the bandwidth,” he recounts. “I was assigned to facilitate getting networks [like Food Network, Home and Garden and Animal Planet] on TCI channels and evaluate our programs for our larger company, Comcast.”

After successfully filling TCI’s bandwidth, the executive found his job obsolete, but once again, he was perfectly positioned. “I knew all these presidents from young channels that now needed programming.”

He reunited with former KUSA buddies Duke Hartman and Sonny Hutchison, and within a year, High Noon’s first series, Animal Planet’s Emergency Vets, hit the air.

Almost 20 years later, high-quality reality remains the core mission, but the company has been expanding its scope. In 2011 High Noon Latino broke into Spanish-language reality TV, which led Berger to another untapped market: Spanglish.

“A top-tier cable network has bought a series about a family-run business in Miami,” Berger teases. “It’s a Cuban-American mom and daughter, so there’s a little Spanish and a little English.”

High Noon’s new global partnership with the UK’s ITV has also spurred growth and change. “It’s been very entrepreneurial,” Berger says. “ITV is a big, sophisticated company. They understand the ups and downs, and we get to engage with other territories.”

Case in point, High Noon recently broke into game shows with GSN’s The Line, inspired by a Swedish colleague.

“It’s still the Wild West,” Berger says of the business he’s embraced. “I don’t care who you are: if you come up with a great idea, let’s go do it!”

 

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