Their Wheels Are In Motion
TV producers hope to create a vehicle for auto enthusiasts
By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff | May 17, 2004
ACTON -- Jim Barisano and John Coscia are Ted Turner wannabes.
As the founders of WheelsTV here, their big dream is to launch a national cable channel dedicated to the thing they love most -- cars.
Never mind that it typically costs more than $100 million to launch a national channel these days and that they'll need to pitch their idea to about a dozen cable and satellite companies such as Comcast and DirecTV.
And talk about competition. While there is currently no national channel devoted exclusively to the automobile (except the Speed Channel, which focuses on racing), plenty of other channels have popular car shows, from MTV's "Pimp My Ride" to Discovery Channel's "Monster Garage" to Spike TV's "Ride With Funkmaster Flex."
Barisano, a 57-year-old Newton native who has spent 20 years creating similar programming for networks such as Discovery and PBS, thinks there's room for more.
"We want to create a hub where car enthusiasts and the average Joe and Jane can tune in and find profiles of vehicles they're shopping for," he said. "We'll do documentaries on the life of a race-car driver and take viewers through the consumer buying process. We'll have soft news announcing new car models. And reality shows where participants can swap cars and fix them up."
Coscia, a 41-year-old Lexington native, adds, "Our plan is to create mostly original programming. We'll have nights devoted to the truck, classic cars, sports cars, and today's hot rods. The automobile is such an important part of American history. The potential here is enormous."
But can two men, and a staff of three others, turn their passion into a real channel on Comcast or RCN?
The aspiring WheelsTV executives do have production experience. They created "Wild About Wheels" in the early '90s for Discovery and later for Speed Vision (the predecessor to the Speed Channel). The group also produced PBS's "Wheels" documentary series in the mid-'90s and Speed Vision's "Motor Trend Television" show from 1998 to 2000. Currently, they produce the Outdoor Life Network's "Dirt Rider Adventures," which airs Mondays at 10:30 p.m.
Given the explosive growth of cable television -- currently there are more than 340 national cable channels -- one might think that even a knitting channel could succeed. But as Daniel A. FitzSimons of Clearwater, Fla., learned five years ago, after failing to launch the Puppy Channel, some concepts can be too niche oriented.
His channel, which would have aired videos of puppies playing, was designed to provide an escape for stressed-out viewers. The cable industry wasn't convinced. "A handful of cable companies choose what America watches," FitzSimons says bitterly,
Robert Jay Gordon, an entrepreneur in Louisville, Ky., says he attempted to launch an auto channel in the early 1990s with many of the same program concepts as Wheels TV. But he was unable to get distribution. Now he operates theautochannel.com, a website with news, reviews, buying tips, and other car information.
"I still think an auto channel is a good idea," says Gordon. "But it's a difficult proposition. Very few people, unless you're a public company with investor money, are spending $50 million.... Frankly, I don't know if you can get distribution without a cable partner."
In addition to the expense of producing at least six hours of original programming a day, WheelsTV will also have to pay about $50,000 a month to transmit its signal to a satellite so cable distributors such as Comcast can receive it. These expenses are going to require investors and advertisers, who may not be interested in supporting an unproven channel.
On the positive side, Barisano and Coscia could eventually make millions of dollars. "Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, and John Hendricks, who launched Discovery, are fabulously successful," says Rob Stoddard, a spokesman for the trade group the National Cable & Telecommunications Association in Washington, D.C. He adds, "But it took years and years of gut-wrenching work for their bets to pay off."
Barisano, who used to chop down trees and sell firewood for a living before taking a video production class at the Boston Center for Adult Education in the early '80s, doesn't spend his time worrying about his prospects. Indeed, when he's not in the office, he's practicing with his rock band, the Men Who Pause. Barisano sings and plays the electric bass. The father of three children in their 30s and a 16-year-old, Barisano is active in his local Rotary club and enjoys power boating on a pond near his home in Littleton.
Barisano is quick to admit that he's not much of a car enthusiast -- he drives a Chevy Tahoe with a single pinstripe. But, he says, "I know cars front to back. My dad was a contractor and I was always the guy who fixed his trucks. I restored engines and changed the oil. I can do hands-on greasy work."
Coscia is a car fanatic who approached Barisano about a job after seeing "Wild About Wheels" on television. "I grew up reading `Hot Rod' magazine," says Coscia, who drives a 1972 Chevelle Supersport. During a typical day on the job, he might direct videographers shooting a motorcycle race from a helicopter. "My father-in-law often asks me, `What are you doing?' " Coscia concedes. "But I'm working in a field I love."
WheelsTV chief operating officer Michael Iandoli is equally excited by vehicles. Five years ago, he owned 12 automobiles (now just two Porsches and a Jaguar). He serves on the board of the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline and is married to a woman who once competed in vintage car races. "Now I can be at work and read car magazines," he says.
Barisano maintains that WheelsTV -- which is headquartered in a nondescript office building here -- is valued at $20 million, and he is currently wooing up to 20 private investors. One investment bank has pledged $25 million, he says, but he would not name it nor any of the four private investors already signed on.
To convince skeptical cable companies to give him a chance, Barisano said he may have to pay operators a one-time fee of up to $3 per subscriber. ( Comcast -- the nation's and the state's largest operator -- has about 21 million subscribers, so the Comcast fee would be a whopping $63 million). Another option is to sell a cable operator an ownership stake, something Barisano is hesitant to do for fear of losing control.
More likely is that cable systems will simply pay WheelsTV for the right to carry the programming. But first they must be impressed.
John Murawski, director of video programming at RCN Corp. -- the second largest cable provider in Massachusetts -- said he typically receives two pitches a month from start-ups but only accepts about two new ideas a year.
"Anybody coming in with a new network has to come in with a low cost for us," said Murawski, who has not yet been approached by WheelsTV because the start-up is focused on larger distributors. "It's hard for us to justify to our customers raising cable rates for networks they've never heard of. We're looking for something well-known, like the Tennis Channel, or something that reaches a unique niche, like G4, a network about video games."
To date, WheelsTV is in negotiations with a number of cable and satellite companies, but it has not yet signed with any of them. Still Barisano is hoping to launch in early 2005.
"Discovery could turn on an auto channel tomorrow," he says. "But the beauty is, viewers can only watch one show at a time. We think our programming will be as good as anyone else's."
Suzanne Ryan can be reached at sryan@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
