Fred Seibert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Fred Seibert (born September 15, 1951) is a television & film producer, and an entertainment executive who has held leading positions with MTV Networks, Hanna-Barbera, and Next New Networks. He's been at the nexis of media innovation for 30 years, responsible for breakthroughs in cable television, animation, and the internet.

Seibert was MTV's first creative director and guided its unique voice and visual identity, creating hundreds of promotions, advertisements, and station IDs for the channel, responsible for a rethinking of how television channels promoted themselves. He also commissioned and approved the mutating MTV logo, despite network executives objections to a logo that did not remain constant.

In 1985, with partner Alan Goodman at Fred/Alan Inc., Seibert successfully overhauled the then-floundering children's cable channel Nickelodeon, moving it from worst to first in the ratings; and conceived and executed the Nick-at-Nite concept. Fred/Alan became the first branding company in television.

Seibert became president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., in 1992, and turned around the struggling animation studio by revamping its production and development process. He created Cartoon Network's What-A-Cartoon!, a showcase for new animated shorts which spun off several series including Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, The Powerpuff Girls, and Courage The Cowardly Dog. He remained at Hanna-Barbera until 1996, when H-B's parent company, Turner Broadcasting, merged with Time Warner.

Seibert founded animation production company Frederator Studios in 1997. Frederator currently has a first look production deal with Nickelodeon, and its productions include The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Nicktoons Film Festival, Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Random! Cartoons, and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, Fanboy and Chum Chum, and Adventure Time.

In addition to his Frederator duties, Seibert returned to MTV Networks in 1999, and was president of MTV Networks Online, president of the MTVi Group, and president of Nickelodeon Online. After the dot-com bubble burst, he returned to Frederator full-time in 2001.

In November 2005 Seibert launched his innovative online network, the world's first cartoon video podcast, which he calls []Channel Frederator]]. Filmmakers submit animated films for weekly exhibition. In quick succession was 'The Wubbcast' for pre-schoolers (with Bolder Media, in January 2006) and 'ReFrederator' with vintage cartoons (April 2006). The network currently has over 4,000,000 monthly video views.

Building on this new media success, in 2007 Seibert conceived and founded Next New Networks, the leading online television company. Along with their affiliated Indy Mogul, Barely Political (home of Obama Girl), Threadbanger and several other networks, the company's superdistribution has allowed it to become among the most widely-distributed video in the world, and to become YouTube's top professional content provider.

In June 2007, Fred Seibert founded Frederator Films to produced animated feature films.[1]]. They are currently in pre-production on Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack with co-producer J.J. Abrams.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ McNary, Dave. [http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117967622.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2564 Toon trio starts Frederator Variety. Mon, Jun. 25, 2007.

[edit] External links

Personal tools