Michael Tannen is an advisor, producer and entrepreneur with more than 40 years’ experience in all areas of the media and communications industries. An experienced negotiator and strategist, Mr. Tannen has worked with many well-known individuals and major international media concerns, including John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bertelsmann A. G. and Columbia Pictures.
Mr. Tannen is currently concentrating on select consulting engagements and is developing a variety of media properties as a producer. Through the Tannen Media Investment Fund, which was active from 1999-2009, Mr. Tannen invested in a wide variety of media and new media related transactions. Mr. Tannen continues — on a limited basis — to make personal investments connected to his consulting and producing activities. He remains actively involved with a number of non-profit environmental activities.
As both a practicing attorney and a business advisor, consultant and producer, Mr. Tannen has an unusually broad range of experience in all areas of the media and communications industries.
He has acted as an advisor to many domestic and international media companies and has represented, in various capacities, a great many well-known entertainers and producers. He has also been instrumental in the start-up of many successful media ventures.
John Lennon, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Bob James, Loudon Wainwright II, Grace Jones, Dr. John (Mac Rebennack), Stephen Stills, Verdine White, The Roches, Merle Haggard, Miriam Makeba, Juliet Prowse, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon. He has also represented the producers Phil Ramone, Jimmy Miller and Paul Samwell Smith, and many leading executives in the music industry.
Bertelsmann A.G., B Sky B, Paramount Pictures, Chess Records, Activision, Arista Records, EMI Music, Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik, Columbia Pictures Industries, Tri-Star Pictures, HBO, MGM/United Artists, Time, Inc., ATC, McCann-Erickson, Ihlas Holdings and Millicom Incorporated.
As a producer, Mr. Tannen has produced feature films for Warner Bros. and Tri-Star Pictures; television specials for HBO, PBS and the BBC; co-produced a three-record inaugural album for President Carter and the National Endowment for the Arts; and was executive producer of Lily Tomlin’s Broadway show, “Appearing Nitely.”
Working closely with the principal shareholder of Industriforvaltnings AB Kinnevik (one of Scandinavia’s leading industrial groups), Mr. Tannen helped Kinnevik start its media business, which today is one of the dominant media and communications groups in Europe.
As an individual investor, he was instrumental in putting together the financing for Home Shopping Service (one of Europe’s most successful television home shopping companies) and, prior to the sale of his interest, successfully managed the investment for the majority shareholders.
As an original investor and partner in PrimeTime 24, a United States satellite-television service, Mr. Tannen supervised and worked closely with management, while managing the investment for the majority shareholders.
Mr. Tannen was of the founding investors of Zombie, a Seattle-based video games design and development company.
As a founder and original investor, Mr. Tannen sits on the board and actively works with management of Screen Media Ventures, a successful United States-based movie and home-video marketing and distribution company. The company currently has in excess of 1800 feature films in active distribution, has concluded licenses with virtually every pay and basic cable television broadcaster in the United States, including Showtime Networks, HBO, Turner Networks, USA Networks, and Lifetime Television, and recently launched PopcornFlix, the first independent, advertiser-supported digital movie channel in America. In the international markets, the company currently licenses its properties to television and video distributors in virtually every territory in the world.
Mr. Tannen was an original investor in EXPO TV the first video-based community specifically created for consumers to share their unbiased opinions about the products they buy. EXPO is the largest and most authentic base of product-focused videos available — now in excess of 300,000. These consumer-generated videos are shared wherever shoppers seek product information, including on expotv.com, shopping engines, retail websites, You Tube and manufacturer sites.
Mr. Tannen was one of the founders of Tappan Zee Records, a jazz label started by Bob James and distributed by CBS Records. He also founded and continues to own the music publishing companies New Media Music (BMI) and Deshufflin, Inc. (ASCAP).
For many years, Mr. Tannen was also the director of the video game company Acclaim Entertainment.
Michael Tannen is currently involved in a number of select projects as producer and investor, as well as in selective consulting and advising assignments for individuals and companies in the entertainment and communications industries. New projects and engagements are considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on Mr. Tannen’s availability and interest. Purely financial investments are no longer being considered, unless connected to specific consulting activities.
Mr. Tannen has a number of movie projects in development and one feature, called Mutual Friends Mutual Friends, which Mr. Tannen is currently executive producing, finished shooting the beginning of November of this year – on time and on budget. It is a feature-length independent film — an ensemble comedy with stories written by five separate writers and performed by a stellar ensemble cast. Mutual Friends follows several intertwining stories of relationship fools traveling through New York City on their way to a surprise party destined to fail. Post production is expected to take 3 or 4 months.
Mr. Tannen is advising the singer-songwriter “Patrina.” Born in India to Anglo-Indian parents, following a successful career as a model working in London, New York and Paris, Patrina now lives in Portugal and writes and records her sultry sound, reminiscent of the early beach samba sound of Brazil in the ’70s.
Mr. Tannen’s ongoing consulting and advisory work for Ihlas Holdings continues a 20-year-old relationship. Ihlas Holdings is one of the largest industrial and media groups in Turkey, with interests in a wide range of industries, including television, newspapers and magazines, internet services, construction, marketing services, news collection and numerous health-related businesses. Mr. Tannen has organized for the Ihlas Media Group a two day media conference and business review to take place in Istanbul early December of this year.
Mr. Tannen continues to be active with numerous environmental non-profit activities, including seats on the boards of the Mohonk Preserve and Parks and Trails New York. Recently, he was appointed a New York State Park Commissioner by the Governor of New York. He also acts as a special advisor to the No Child Left Inside Coalition. He is a past board member of The Rails To Trails Conservancy.
Mr. Tannen graduated from the New York University Law School. He lives primarily in New York with his wife, Mary, who is a novelist and playwright, and who was a regular contributor to the New York Times and many other publications.
Michael Tannen
Tannen Media Ventures, Inc.
90 Riverside Drive
New York, New York 10024
mike@tanco.com
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