The Business of “Online Casting notices”

Over the last three years, there has been a war involving the supremacy over casting notices for aspiring actors. In 1960 the late Ira Eaker, founder of Backstage (with Allen Zwerdling), had a lock on the New York City auditions. The newspaper quickly became the prime source of casting and audition information for aspiring New York performers. On the West Coast, the Brody family created,“ Drama Logue”, similar to BackStage but with a Film/TV slant on auditions.

Prior to the popularity of online casting notices, the Brody family sold their newspaper to the parent company of Backstage, VNU, a European conglomerate with deep pockets. VNU also owns the Hollywood Reporter, Nielson Ratings, Adweek, Billboard, to name a few.

Fast track to the mid 90’s, numerous online casting companies came and went.’ One of the largest companies out the gate was IAM.com , funded by Lehman Brothers Venture Partners and the Palo Alto, Ca. Venture capital firm, Sierra Ventures. Even with TV commercials on the 72nd Annual Academy Awards telecast as national advertising spots that were aired on MTV and the Superbowl, the company floundered in their attempt to make a presence with “working actors”.

To make a very long story short, two companies appear to have the lucrative online casting notices sewn up: Breakdown Services and LAcasting.com. Breakdown Services founder, Gary March, who since the 1971 has been extremely successful in being the go-between for casting directors and producers, talent agents and managers. Breakdown Services became synonymous with legitimate auditions for actors in New York and Los Angeles. Backstage and Dramalogue have the low paying, deferred paying and student films. Meaning they provide the projects agents would not deal with. In addition, San Francisco casting director and brilliant entrepreneur Beau Bonneau created “LACasting.com,” which arrived in Los Angeles and took the city by storm. LACasting became a workable and reliable method for agents to submit the actors they represent electronically.

While LAcasting.com has apparently won over the commercial talent agents in LA, Gary March’s “Breakdown Services” continues to reign the world of film, TV and theatre auditions. Meanwhile, New York talent agents have not been won over with Beau’s services. New York agents continue to use the tried and true way of working and selling using the telephone and email, a much simpler and comfortable way for the town to work.

Where did Backstage go wrong? While they may be down, they may not be out.The publishers have added some brilliant new executives to bring the brand back, National Editor-in-Chief: Jamie Painter Young and innovative and aggresive Charles Weiss, National Advertising Director. It seems to have lost the hearts and eyes of aspiring actors in America. Actors now click to Breakdown services web site and LACasting.com

I will frequently post with my opinions of the online casting business.