Press Releases
21st March 2019
Press Release
Greenhills Media and Bender Media Services announce distribution partnership for Latam
Melbourne: Greenhills Media is proud to announce the appointment of Bender Media Services as the exclusive distribution partner for South and Central America, taking the Greenhills Media catalogue of factual series and documentary programs to the region for the first time.
Greenhills Media’s front-line titles include the international hit series Photo Number 6 (10 x 60’), the newly commissioned factual series Animal Embassy (10 x 30’) - filmed at the World’s Most Popular Zoo, Loro Parque Tenerife, and the award-winning documentary, Roll With Me.
Greenhills Media is an international producer/distributor based in Melbourne Australia specialising in factual and documentary titles.
Bender Media Services is owned and operated by Susan Bender, who was recently inducted into the International Distributors Hall of Fame.
Greenhills Media CEO, Mike Aldrich said, “I am truly honoured to be working with such a legend of the industry. Susan’s experience and knowledge are second to none so she was the first person I called when we decided to launch into the Latam region.
We have been friends for almost 10 years and I love Susan’s no-nonsense approach and the great affection she has for her clients. I know the Greenhills Media catalogue is safe in her hands and I look forward to delivering quality programs to her and her clients for many years to come.”
For more information, please contact:
Mike Aldrich, CEO, Greenhills Media
+61 499 776 061
Susan Bender, President and CEO
Bender Media Services Corp.
+1 212 707 8244
Susan L. Bender: Welcoming New Challenges Wasn’t a Challenge
Susan Leigh Bender does things differently. First she entered show business from the “show” portion, as a nightclub singer to be exact. Later, she moved into the industry from the “business” side, and, in the process, she ended up selling programs to Latin American TV stations without speaking Spanish.
In addition, when she started in the industry, the TV business was a male-dominated field, with women relegated to secretarial jobs. In this respect Bender is a pioneer, similar to other female international TV sales executives such as Claude S. Perrier and Gilberte de Turenne in France, Giuliana Nicodemi in Italy, Mex Hartmann in Germany and Alice Donenfeld in the U.S.
Finally, TV distributors usually start working in indie companies and then move to studios; Bender instead went from a studio position and became an independent distributor.
But before that challenge, which saw her moving from a studio to an indie and culminated in a 45-year career that is still going strong, Bender went through a dramatic, if short, interlude as a sales executive at Harmony Gold, which was in the midst of international intrigue and court action.
As vice president, Latin American Television Sales, Bender worked at Paramount International Television for 20 years, starting in 1986. Before that, she was executive director, International Sales at Metromedia Produces, a company she joined in 1972.
At Paramount she worked under three division presidents: Bruce Gordon, Gary Marenzi and Armando Nuñez Jr. “But,” she said, “even though I was paid up until 2006, I actually left in 2005.” Bender added that during that time she “never did output deals. I simply didn’t believe in them.”
At Metromedia she worked with Paul Rich and, for two years under Herb Lazarus. Rich recalled: “Susan pretty much ran the Latin American sales operation by herself. At MIP-TV in 1980, she approached me and said, ‘Paul, I’ve got this client from Argentina who has owed us a lot of money for a while and wants to see you immediately.’ As the client approached me, he was carrying a large manila envelope, and blurted out, ‘This is for you to pay the balance of what I owe you.’ I opened it, and inside was $100,000 in bonds! I loved it when our clients paid their bills (especially Latin Americans), but, at the sight of all that money, I panicked, but the ever-reliable Susan remained cool, took the envelope, walked across the street to a bank, and deposited it in a Metromedia account we had established there.”
During an interview at NATPE Miami last January, Bender admitted that she didn’t know how the bonds worked. “The bank took care of cashing them,” she said.
While on the subject, Bender reported that throughout her TV sales career, she never had collection problems in Latin America. “Late payment, yes, but we always got paid,” she added.
In effect, the bonds were the only possible form of payment at that time, when TV stations purchased their government bonds with local currency and used them to pay foreign suppliers. For a discount on the face value banks bought the bonds, which were re-sold or cashed when interests matured.
Bender is a product of America’s heartland, born in Youngstown, Ohio. She was a Theater Arts major at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana. As such, she was the typical no-nonsense, practical person with good, down-to-earth common sense.
Indeed, from the time Bender started on stage in 1969 as a singer in Santa Monica, California, to when she entered the TV business at Metromedia Producers, only three years had passed. And from there she went to become vice president, Latin America Television Sales at Paramount TV International 14 years later.
Here’s how Bender recalled the start of her career and especially meeting an American star like Bob Hope: “When I turned 21 years old, Los Angeles was the place to start a singing career, so I auditioned for a very famous nightclub in Santa Monica, California called The Horn. It was famous in the ’60s and ’70s for showcasing aspiring talent – including Steve Martin, Andy Griffith and Phyllis Diller, to name a few. I was accepted, the youngest to showcase there, and one night the manager of ‘The New Christy Minstrels’ was in the audience. After my performance, he asked me to come and audition for the group, [which I joined].”
Founded in 1961, the “Minstrels” is still an American large-ensemble folk music group also famous for having recorded the 1940 song, This Land Is Your Land.
Bender continued: “In 1970, ‘The New Christy Minstrels’ went on a United Service Organizations (USO) Tour to entertain our troops in Korea and Japan. And there, I met Bob Hope.”
The singer, comedian and movie star had been involved with USO Tours since World War II and the U.S. government honored him with A Military Order of the Purple Heart and named a vessel, “USNS Bob Hope.”
“I eventually became a very close friend of Bob Hope’s niece, Avis Hope,” Bender added, “and over the years Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, became ‘Uncle Bob and Aunt Dolores,’ when I was in their company with Avis.”
Not long after, Bender left the “Minstrels” to embark on her own nightclub act, but she recalled, “I had a period of six weeks with no club dates, and needed to earn some money. I went to an employment agency in Hollywood, California, to see if I could find something short-term. There was a position open at Metromedia Producers Corp., in music royalties. I was told very confidentially that the supervisor was extremely difficult to work for, and I would be considered lucky if I could last the six weeks. To make a long story short, we got on famously, and my six weeks turned into 13 years!”
She continued: “During my days at Metromedia Producers Corp., I learned the television business from the bottom up beginning with music royalties, then to accounting, then to worldwide contract administration, and finally to executive director of international sales. My special emphasis was in Latin America. Strange as it may seem, the majority of my clients understood English, and I understood a lot of Spanish.
“Even though the ‘speaking’ part was difficult from both sides, there was always a person in the traveling group of executives who spoke English. As time went on, the children of many of our buyers were educated in the United States, and many of them took over the leadership of their TV channels – especially in Central America. [I was] no different really than handling Japan and not speaking Japanese! There is always a way to communicate.”
In 1977 Bender was sent to work in domestic and international administration under Klaus Lehmann at Metromedia’s New York City office, where she controlled the activities of 15 foreign representatives for 130 territories. Two years later, she returned to her L.A. office to work under Herb Lazarus and Alan Silverbach.
Then in 1982 she was sent to Metromedia’s Boston office, reporting to Paul Rich, and three years later asked to return to Los Angeles. By then Bender’s office moved from the old Playboy Building on Sunset Blvd. to KTTV, a Metromedia TV station.
After Rupert Murdoch’s Fox acquired Metromedia, Bender was looking forward to a vacation before job hunting. One morning at 6 a.m. she received a call from Paramount International Television’s president, Bruce Gordon, saying that veteran LATAM executive Ramon Perez was retiring, and he offered her a sales position to replace him.
“Perplexed, I answered that I had to think it over,” she recalled, and then continued, “once off the phone I started to berate myself for such stupidity. How could I have answered that way was beside me! So, I immediately called Bruce back and accepted the offer, but I asked if I could take a one-week vacation first. He said yes, but he wanted me on the lot for that May 1986 Screenings. I remained at Paramount for the next 20 years.”
The May Screenings in Hollywood were then 22-year-old rituals that in 1983 VideoAge re-named “L.A. Screenings,” and with which Bender was very familiar. She recalled that at Metromedia, starting in 1980, she invited clients to screen at KTTV, followed by a cocktail party on the station’s rooftop terrace. In 1984, Metromedia began having the stars of their shows (like Fantasy Island and Charlie’s Angels) meet with buyers during the Screenings.
For studios’ international sales executives, maintaining a poker face while screening a bad show for clients has always been a challenge, hence the Hollywood expression, “if they want me to also watch the show, they have to pay me extra.” Coming from an artistic background, this challenge was more prominent for Bender, who tried “to keep my bias out of judgments. I tried to be fair even though some shows were better than others [for my clients].”
The Screenings also involved plenty of dinners with clients. Recalled Marcel Vinay Sr., who met Bender when she was at Paramount and he was a buyer for Mexico’s Televisa: “Susan had a very loud laugh, so when she started laughing at a restaurant, the whole room would start looking at us.”
In addition to screening on the Paramount lot, Bender also traveled extensively throughout the region, even covering small territories, “but never in Colombia because the studio was concerned for my safety,” she explained.
The LATAM region presented another challenge for Bender, a woman traveling alone in an environment that Vinay described as “very tough for women who had to deal with very aggressive Latin males.” “But,” confessed Bender, “I never had any problem because I demanded and received the utmost respect. As a result, I became a part of their ‘family’ and remain so to this day.”
Never married, Bender was “engaged to be married three times, but ultimately I decided that my career was more important. Still, I never returned any of the engagement rings. In effect, I’m an unclaimed treasure,” she joked.
After her contract at Paramount expired in 2006, Bender became a consultant (with the title of president) at Frank Agrama’s Harmony Gold, responsible for worldwide sales. At that time, Agrama was enmeshed in Italy’s Mediaset trial for false accounting, among other charges. He was acquitted in 2014 due to an expired statute of limitations. But, said Bender, “the topic was never discussed at the office.”
After that one-year experience, in 2007 Bender returned to New York City and formed her own distribution company: Bender Media Services, and hired Sally Treibel, a former TV sales executive at Seagull Communications, headquartered in Lima, Peru.
“I always liked New York and I was glad to go back. Plus, I had a vacation house in Maine, where I still spend my summers and falls,” she said.
Premising that television distribution is “a relationship-type of business,” Bender acknowledged some challenges she faces now as an independent TV content distributor to Latin America: “Stations are producing and co-producing more, so they’re buying less. My job is now to find out what they need to fill their reduced available slots and alert my producers. Fortunately,” she added, “I don’t have to bid for product.”
Indeed, bidding for quality product is becoming a problem for LATAM indie distributors because it increases costs that cannot be transferred to buyers.
“This gringa definitely has Latin blood,” she concluded, “The only gringa to handle Latin America for a major studio that always spoke English (I understand Spanish, but am ‘too shy’ to speak it). And as the old song says, “The best is yet to come!”
(By Dom Serafini)
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ TV
ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC LATAM AGENCY AGREEMENT
London, UK (24 April 2015): Guinness World Records (GWR), the global authority on record-breaking achievements, has announced the appointment of Bender Media Services to represent its TV catalogue of over 850 hours of programming in Latin America.
Having brought the TV arm of its business back in-house, GWR is looking to significantly expand its global TV footprint. Latin America is a key region where GWR sees potential for growth in its TV program and format sales.
Speaking ahead of MIP TV, Rob Molloy, GWR’s Director of Global TV Content and Sales, said ‘Bender Media Services had an exemplary sales record when they previously worked with GWR, and we are excited to be working with Susan Bender and Sally Treibel again. Their significant experience in the region, combined with their hard work and tenacious negotiations skills, brought huge rewards to GWR and we look forward to enjoying similar success with them again in Latin America over the coming months’.
BENDER MEDIA COMMENTS …..
We are absolutely delighted to be back with our GWR family, and we are very pleased to represent this brilliant, outstanding franchise to our Latin American buyers. The continued growth of this Brand across our Region, will give our buyers assurances and confidence that the GWR programs will continue to resonate with audiences for many years to come!
About GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS (GWR) is the universally recognized global authority on record-breaking achievement. First published in 1955, over 132 million copies – and 3 million e-books - have been sold in 20 languages, in more than 100 countries. Since then, the internationally renowned brand is also available across a number of platforms; GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS global television shows are watched by over 750 million viewers annually, over half a million subscribe to the GWR YouTube channel, the global website receives 14 million viewers annually and has over 8 million fans on Facebook.
About Bender Media Services Corp:
Headquartered in New York, Bender Media Services Corp. represents the Latin American distribution of television producers in all key programming categories, including Lifestyle, Entertainment, Documentaries, Children's Programming, Reality, Extreme Sports, Travel, Cooking, Beauty & Adventure, and Animation. Susan Bender formed Bender Media Services Corp. with an extensive and distinguished career as a recognized leader in international television. For nearly two decades Bender held the senior sales position representing Latin America for Paramount International Television, serving as the studio's Vice President from 1986-2006. Bender previously held the position of Executive Director, International Sales, for Metromedia Producers Corporation, owned by John Kluge, where she served for 13 years from 1972 to 1986.
#####
ARCHIVED PRESS RELEASES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Blue Socks Media LLC OR Bender Media Services Corp.
Toni Steedman Sally Treibel
tsteedman@raggs.com Sally@BenderMediaServices.net
704-372-7400 212-707-8244
Graphics: www.raggs.com/press More info: www.raggs.com
Raggs Series in Espanol Rocks Telemundo
Debuts In July
(May 1, 2012, Charlotte, NC) - The five colorful canines from the Raggs rockin' TV series are practicing their "gracias" as 120 new Spanish language episodes begin airing this July on U.S. Spanish language broadcast network Telemundo, a division of NBCUniversal. The Emmy-award winning, educational series combines musical segments with live action stories, cartoons and interviews with real kids to create a high energy, fun-filled half hour for both parents and children.
The Raggs series airs on public television stations in the U.S. and in countries such as Australia, Ireland and Israel (Hebrew version). while spanish versions of songs such as "Raggs Rocks," have become popular iTunes downloads, this is Raggs first venture into Spanish television.
Toni Steedman, President of Blue Socks Media LLC and the owners of the Raggs series,explained, "Raggs" has always embodied the strong family values reflected in the Spanish culture and we're delighted to introduce Raggs to our Spanish-language friends."
Raggs preschool series stars Raggs, a music-loving, tail-wagging pup, and his four musical friends, Trilby, Pido, B. Max and Razzles, who play rock n' rll music together as The Raggs Band and explore adventures in their own cool clubhouse. They are supported by their wisecracking pet cat, Dumpster, who hosts his own talk show within each episode. The Raggs Band also performs two concert songs and one music video of their hit songs in each episode.
Raggs is represented for distribution in Latin america by Bender Media Services. The Telemundo contract was brokered by Susan Bender of Bender Media Services and Jaime Escandon of Renata Productions. For further information, please contact Susan Bender, 212-707-8244 or Sally@BenderMediaServices.net
##################
VIDEOAGE INTERNATIONAL
May 3, 2012
This week in the Water Cooler blog, VideoAge gives the low-down on the U.S. networks' 2012-2013 commissioned pilots.
Take a look at: http://videoageinternational.com/blog5/BMS Inks Deal with Leomark
Los Angeles-based production and sales company Leomark Studios selected Bender Media Services Corporation (BMS) to serve as its exclusive distributor for all Spanish-language television rights in the U.S., Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands. Leomark's titles include series such as iKuztom, Where Cars Don't Dare and Quigley.
http://sites.google.com/site/bendermedia services
################
TV Latina.ws
BoPaul Media Pacts with Bender
By Kristin Brzoznowski
Published: April 10, 2012
LOS ANGELES: BoPaul Media Worldwide (BMW) has signed an exclusive distribution agreement for all Latin American territories and Spanish-language U.S. channels with Bender Media Services.
BMW, which made its market debut last week at MIPTV, has grown its catalogue to more than 850 titles. This includes classic films like Citizen Kane and theatricals such as Mrs. Caldicot's Cabbage War and the documentary Heaven. The new partnership kicks off at the LA Screenings next month.
"With Susan Bender's history of success as head of Latin America sales during our stint together at Metromedia followd by her 20 years in the same position at Paramount Pictures and now with her company's own footprint in all of the Western Hemisphere, BMW is most fortunate in having this heavy responsibility under the direction and trust of such a valuable organization," said Paul Rich, the owner and CEO of MBW.
************************************************************************************************************
BENDER MEDIA SERVICES CORP. CONTINUES TO STRENGTHEN THEIR CATALOGUE OF PROGRAM OFFERINGS
New York, March 28, 2012
Bender Media Services Corp. (BMS) now has the pleasure of representing programming from 15 distribution companies, most recently adding BoPaul Media Worldwide (BMW) and Leomark Studios, both located in Los Angeles.
We will be attending the Los Angeles Screenings from May 15 through May 23, 2012, exhibiting from Suite 860 at the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California.
************************************************************************************************************
New York, March 24, 2011
Bender Media Services Corp. (BMS) is continuing to expand their product affiliations for Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic Market, with the addition of programs from NordicWorld, and RDA TV.
BMS will be offering a wide range of quality programs from all genres - Drama, Documentary, Lifestyle, Travel, Reality, Music, and Children's programs from NordicWorld. NordicWorld was established in 2005 to create new sales opportunities for Nordic content by providing a united export platform. Starting as a 50/50 joint venture between TV2 Norway and TV4 Sweden, the coalition has subsequently grown to include a number of prominent broadcast and production partners, notably NRK in Norway, MTV3 and YLE in Finland, TV2 in Denmark and K2 in Estonia.
BMS will also be representing Series II and III of the Bullrun Reality Series from RDA TV, a leading UK based Independent Distributor of sports and action-entertainment programming. Bullrun is a brand new episode elimination Series, with a perfect blend of high octane supercar thrills, incredible stunts, and breathtaking locations, bursting with the explosive personalities and vehicles from Hummers to Mini's, and Lamborghinis to Beetles.
Susan Bender, President & CEO of Bender Media Services Corp. said: "We are proud to have formed these two new alliances with such prestigious European Companies".
BMS and its founder Susan Bender have been brokering content deals in Latin America for over 42 years for established names such as Paramount Pictures, Metromedia Producers Corp,, Guinness World Records, FCCE Intl, Global Telemedia Intl, Toonz Entertainment, and Global Telemedia Int'l.
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Martha Production Srl is pleased to announce that it has named Bender Media Services Corp. as a new partner.
Ms. Susan Bender brings with her 40 years of experience in the television industry. She has an extensive and distinguished career as a recognized leader in Latin American Television Distribution. For two decades, Bender held the position of Vice President of Latin American Television Sales for Paramount Pictures, before opening her own company, Bender Media Services Corp. in 2006. Before joining Paramount Pictures, Bender held the position of Executive Director International Sales for Metromedia Producers Corp., owned by John Kluge, where she served for 13 years.
Martha Production Srl is a film production and distribution company based in Rome, Italy. The company is one of the fastest growing production and distribution companies in Italy and is currently acquiring and distributing high quality films and documentaries globally. Alongside this activity, Martha Production is also producing high quality, award winning films, documentaries, television formats and animation series, as it continues to expand. With its new partnerships and vast network of contacts, Martha Production aims to continue to grow, increasing its level of production and its distribution network.
We welcome Susan Bender and Bender Media Services Corp. and look forward to a prosperous future with Susan and her company.
Martha Production Srl
Rome, Italy