Pittard Sullivan, the international entertainment marketing and communications company that made its name as a pioneer in television broadcast design, abruptly shut its doors at the end of March. The company had bases in Culver City, Calif., and New York. Its Munich office closed two months ago; its London operation will likely continue under new management, pending the outcome of negotiations with suitors.
Financial troubles compounded by the down economy led to the demise of the 15-year-old firm. Pittard Sullivan’s closure leaves nearly 50 employees out of work. The shop was headed by co-presidents/CEOs Billy Pittard and Ed Sullivan.
Sullivan said that he and Pittard convened a staff meeting at the Culver City headquarters on March 30 to inform employees that the company would be shuttered. Up until then, Pittard Sullivan had been in negotiations with an Internet consulting firm that had been expected to acquire the company. But the anticipated takeover fell through at the last minute, leaving Pittard Sullivan with no option but to close.
Sullivan related that he and Pittard have known for around nine months that the shop needed an infusion of investment capital in order to remain viable and grow the business, particularly in the European market. While various suitors have courted the company over the past year or so, Sullivan reported, "When the market turnaround [occurred], the more institutional lenders became very squeamish about investing in anything."
Sullivan attributed some of Pittard Sullivan’s cash crunch to unpaid bills of clients who went bankrupt, and to companies that were slow to pay. "The traditional [firms] we worked for, like ABC.com and Discovery Health. com and TiVo—all those that were run by great business people and funded by big-brand companies—did very well. It was the little guys with the start-ups that hurt us; the few that we did [jobs for] were the ones that went bankrupt." Sullivan declined to identify those companies, but said Pittard Sullivan has filed suit against them to recover money.
While not totally ruling out the possibility, Sullivan said Pittard Sullivan doesn’t intend to declare bankruptcy. "Our initiative is to supervise the sale of the company [assets]," he stated, "and make sure everyone gets as much of the cash they are owed as possible. Potentially, [declaring bankruptcy] could happen, but it hasn’t come to that yet."
Los Angeles-based City National Bank is slated to liquidate the firm’s assets. A number of employees are said to be owed varying amounts of back pay from salary and travel/business expenses. Moreover, Sullivan added, the company was forced to stop contributing to employees’ 401K plans early this year, as it simply lacked the funds to do so. When asked whether former workers would receive severance, Sullivan reiterated that the firm intends to honor its commitments to the fullest extent it can.
Over the years, Pittard Sullivan built its reputation based on the on-air promos, main titles for TV shows, network identities, and promo graphics packages that were its primary business. The shop earned five Emmy Awards for creating the main titles of The Wonderful World of Disney, ER, The Ricki Lake Show and the World Track and Field Championships for NBC Sports, as well as for creating packaging for NBC Sports’ coverage of the 25th Summer Olympiad.
Its broadcast design clients included CBS, for which Pittard Sullivan functioned as in-house on-air promo graphics department from 1991 to ’98. In ’95, for CBS, the firm created what was billed as the first network branding effort that was based upon a network’s lineup of stars. Another of the studio’s notable projects was creating ABC’s distinctive yellow and black primetime network branding campaign. Other clients included NBC, FOX Network, Showtime, TNT, TBS, CNN, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Lifetime Television and the Discovery Network.
"Last year, we had a good year in broadcast design," said Sullivan. "More recently, I think it’s become a ‘commoditized’ kind of business with laptop editing and desktop graphics. So prices have come down significantly in the marketplace since we first started doing it. The pricing in that marketplace is headed for even more ‘commoditization.’ I see [graphic design] as being a cottage industry with much smaller shops. I don’t think that the big creative shops like ours can survive in the marketplace with competitors in smaller boutiques that have a real good skill set."
Pittard Sullivan attempted to diversify beyond broadcast design in recent years. It expanded into interactive and convergent media, licensing and merchandising, print advertising, live-action broadcast commercials and strategic planning. The firm also partnered with real estate/holding company Samitaur Constructs to build Stage-2, a Culver City-based studio facility featuring 10,000 sq. ft. of production space, including a 6,000 sq. ft. stage (SHOOT, 4/30/99, p. 30).
Sullivan denied published reports that these expansions proved to be failed ventures. "Despite what you’ve read or heard, those businesses were profitable, for the most part," he contended. "We expanded at a controlled growth rate. We weren’t breaking world records for trying to see how fast we could grow the business."
SHOOT also spoke with several former high-ranking, inside-company sources that offered their takes on the situation. According to one ex-staffer, Pittard Sullivan became further financially strapped as its core broadcast design business began to shrink: "At one point, it [broadcast design] represented 95 percent of the revenue that came into the company, but it shrunk to 45 percent," said this source, who requested anonymity. "But Billy [Pittard] insisted on keeping this big broadcast design staff on when the business didn’t dictate it. I think they priced themselves out of that market. They were extraordinarily high priced because they had to cover immense overhead. If you’re launching, for instance, the Crime Channel, you haven’t got tons of money. You can go to some ex-Pittard Sullivan designer working out of his house and pay a tenth of what it cost at Pittard Sullivan."
Another source confirmed that Pittard Sullivan was reluctant to part with its highly valued talent, and indicated that the company took a financial hit when large projects that had been awarded to the studio failed to materialize on several occasions. Moreover, the decision to take on an increased amount of spec work—which, during one period a few years ago, outnumbered commissioned jobs—was perhaps another miscalculation, this source opined.
"Now we can look back and say we could have done this or that," stated Pittard. "We could have all sold our stock before the market collapsed, but who knew? You can only act with what you know about things. Sometimes things happen that are just beyond your control. This has been a hard experience for me personally, and I feel bad for how hard it’s been for a lot of other people, too. I do know that they [staffers] couldn’t have tried any harder."
Pittard said he is now in the process of wrapping up loose ends at the studio and trying to take care of former clients. As for Sullivan, he reported that he has been hired as a consultant to an undisclosed media company.
In 1986, Pittard founded Hollywood-based Pittard Design, a company moniker that changed to Pittard Sullivan in ’87 when Sullivan arrived. In late ’92, the studio banner became Pittard Sullivan Fitzgerald when film title veteran Wayne Fitzgerald joined as a partner. Fitzgerald left in ’95, and the studio name reverted back to Pittard Sullivan.
