Next Generation International TV – special feature

International borders are no match for the next generation of leaders in the television business

It's a hell of a world the Next Generation is inheriting.

Our inaugural graduating class of 20 international television talents is coming of age in a time of seismic change: A global recession is undermining the foundations of ad-supported TV, and digital platforms, particularly the Internet, threaten to turn the business into a global free-for-all where giants can emerge overnight -- and vanish tomorrow.

So why are they all smiling?

Let the old fogies atop the world's largest broadcasters and production conglomerates grumble about migrating audiences, declining ad revenue and online piracy. The 20 men and women on The Hollywood Reporter's inaugural Next Generation International Television list are embracing change. They've grown up with it.

"It's one of the skills we've had to develop, to accept change as the natural course of events, that change is valuable, change is fun," says Anton Kurbatov, vp at Russia's Sistema Mass Media and, at 24, the youngest executive in the Next Gen class of 2009. "What drives me is that something is changing every day. You have to keep pushing yourself out of the comfort zone."

For most of our group, that push started back at university. A degree from Harvard or the London School of Economics is as common among these cosmopolites as accent-free English and a buzzing BlackBerry. Our Next Gen execs know they are competing in a truly global marketplace and are acting accordingly.

"My generation sees the bigger picture," says Juliet Asante, founder and CEO of Ghana-based Eagle Production. "We're always looking (at) how we can collaborate and watching boundaries (fall) down."

Those falling boundaries are ones of nationality, language and even gender. Although our inaugural Next Generation of international television talent is heavy on the Y chromosomes -- 13 men to just seven women -- even that represents real progress from just a few years back. The old boy's network of international TV is changing for good.

"The new-media world is still crystalizing, it's still not clear who the big players will be, what the business models will be, who you will be doing business with," says Alexander von Moers, new media sales manager at Germany-based Beta Film.

And they are ready to travel the world to find it. This is the frequent flier generation. They battle jet lag and endure lifeless airport terminals in search of the next trend, the best deal.

To keep up on new pilot deals in Burbank, broadband rollout in Beijing or mobile platform development Barcelona, our execs stay jacked into the mainframe. The Internet is as essential a tool as the telephone. Professional corporate networking site LinkedIn the new corporate Rolodex. Our group still reads plenty of "old media" too -- the trades, local and international, the Economist, the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. But unlike previous generations, they also scan blogs and cruise chat rooms, always on the lookout for new information, signs of the next big thing.

Interestingly, these digital natives are easily able to distinguish between a useful new tech tool and a hyped-up time waster.

Next Gen International TV List

THR's inaugural graduating class of 20 international television talents is coming of age in a time of seismic change: A global recession is undermining the foundations of ad-supported TV, and digital platforms, particularly the Internet, threaten to turn the business into a global free-for-all where giants can emerge overnight -- and vanish tomorrow.

Meet the 20 under-35s who are redefining the world of international television

Tomorrow's TV biz leaders embracing change

> Juliet Asante, 34

Founder and CEO, Eagle Prods.

Asante won the Ghana film industry's award for best actress in 2001, but she knew she needed to diversify to ensure a long career. So, the overachieving Asante added director and producer to her title and today, Eagle Prods., which Asante founded in 1999, is one of Ghana's most prominent TV production companies. Educated in Ghana, she writes and directs one of the nation's most successful TV soap operas, "Secrets," is a member of the World Economic Forum's entertainment council and finds time to be editor of Entertainment Today Magazine. "I love to write in my free time and I love to read," she says. "I love what I do. It doesn't feel like work."

> Travis Conneeley, 33

Creative director, Foxtel Owned & Operated Channel

Conneeley literally smashed his way into the TV business. Working as a runner on the Aussie soap "Home and Away," he crashed the show's production car on his very first day. "By the end of the day, everyone knew who I was," he laughs. Fifteen years later, Conneeley is still driving, but only metaphorically: His job is to drive "audiences of all ages into watching television they never originally planned to." He does that by overseeing not one but 12 separate channels, while serving as executive producer on such programming as Foxtel's coverage of the Sydney Mardi Gras parade.

> Anton Kurbatov, 24

VP strategy, Sistema Mass-media

A corporate suit with the heart of a rock star, Kurbatov has become one of Russia's leading media executives at the ridiculously young age of 24. "I actually look back and think, 'How did this happen?' " he humbly admits. "Every day I get more responsibility, more companies to look at, more things to manage." Selected to join a team of crack economics students tasked with restructuring giant production outfit Russian World Studios (after Russian mega-conglomerate Sistema Mass-media bought it out), Kurbatov was named head of strategy at RWS and then promoted to his current position in the holding company. At Sistema Mass-media, Kurbatov's portfolio is vast and includes everything from overseeing RWS' production to supervising Stream TV, Russia's largest pay-TV group with about 15 million subscribers. "The challenge is always to be able to speak the language of the board room -- to talk to the investors and the corporate world, and then speak the language of the advertisers, distributors and content providers," he says.

Scott Roxborough,

"The Hollywood Reporter"