Richard Cormier is the new president of Oak Park, Mich.-based GTN; he begins in early June.
“We have a lot of initiatives going on across three areas: Creative content shaping, content management and content distribution,” explained GTN owner/CEO Doug Cheek. “Richard’s knowledge and involvement in those areas is fairly significant–We’ve been friends and associates for many years and share the same ideas about how these should work in this industry.”
Based in the advertiser-heavy Detroit market, GTN employees roughly 130 and is a production, postproduction and new media company whose services include studio facilities, location and studio production, film transfer, editing, audio post, graphics and visual effects, new media, duplication and distribution.
It also offers its unique, in-house developed CARS (Content Archive Retrieval System) media asset management system, a service offered to agency clients. CARS is built around a database that stores the clients’ digital assets and contains descriptive metadata about each entry. Access, database search tools, asset viewing and downloads are available using a standard Internet browser. Security is controlled with assignable individual logins and passwords.
Cormier had recently launched Richard Cormier Consultants with a focus on these areas–which he said he would discontinue with his decision to join GTN–after nearly a year as VP of New York-based Nice Shoes, as well as managing director of Nice Shoes’ sister companies Guava and Freestyle Collective.
Previously, he spent four-and-a-half years with Santa Monica-headquartered Ascent Media Group, most recently as senior VP of commercial digital services, following four years as managing director of Ascent-owned R!OT Santa Monica. At R!OT, he oversaw the merger of POP, POP Animation, Digital Magic, 525 Studios, Hollywood Digital West and the original R!OT.
Earlier, Cormier founded two companies in his home of Montreal: Buzz Image Group, a visual effects and postproduction studio; and Jazz Media Network, which developed one of the earliest remote collaboration systems for media production.
“I’ve always had a great deal of respect for GTN, and that was a major reason to join,” said an excited Cormier. “Doug and I have been sharing ideas about various industry opportunities for over a decade, and now is the time to take GTN’s business model and move to the next set of those opportunities. [For instance] GTN’s making a big push in content management and distribution, and that’s something I’m looking to grow as much as possible.”
Cheek, noting that the company became an employee-owned entity a year ago next month, added that “it’s healthy to have a fresh set of eyes look at the organization” and that for instance CARS would benefit from Cormier’s “deep and strong knowledge of digital asset management.”
As well, Cheek reports that the distribution services have “grown exponentially in the last six to eight months. That will continue to grow–it includes distribution of spots for broadcasters, and appropriate services that go with that including watermarking.”
