The Consummate Executive

Kathleen Dore, president of broadcasting for Canwest Media, enjoys an almost storied career in television, dating back to her arrival at Rainbow Media in the early 1980s.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, she spent her formative years in Iowa. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's degree in broadcasting and film and an MBA in finance — a seemingly perfect setup for her later work in the media business. But Dore's first gig was as an account executive at Merrill Lynch.

From the get-go, Dore's talents lay in sales and marketing. She joined Rainbow Media in 1982 as an affiliate marketing manager.

“In the early days when I was working on targeted cable networks, it became a really critical part of our strategy to have a strong bond and establish viewer loyalty,” Dore said.

Creating that connection was almost more important than the programming, which was thin during the 1980s. Dore quickly realized that she was marketing an idea as much as a product. “It was important [that the network] be aspirational,” Dore said. “We aimed at what [viewers] could expect in the future.”

Dore was named vice president and general manager of Bravo in 1988. Programming began improving, and Dore recognized viewers wanted much more than they were being served by the traditional networks. “People were hungry for variety and depth,” she said.

At that time, Bravo — now owned by NBC Universal — was focused specifically on theater, dance, music and some film content, but its subscriber base was limited to hardcore classical arts lovers in less than 500,000 U.S. households. Dore toiled to expand and broaden the brand.

“I worked to make it more appealing and non-threatening to a larger audience that wouldn't buy a ticket to a theater, but might watch a performance on TV,” said Dore.

That meant introducing some new programming that was a little more fun and a little less ardently highbrow. Dore oversaw the development of the award-winning series Inside the Actors Studio, as well as Bravo Profiles, Musicians and The It Factor. In a departure from its traditional arts format, Dore also launched the hit show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

In her 14 years at the helm, the network reached profitability and its subscriber base grew to 68 million U.S. households. Dore also partnered with the Canadian broadcaster CHUM to launch Bravo Canada.

During that time, Dore also created the Independent Film Channel in 1994 and the production and distribution company IFC Entertainment in 1997.

At the time she left Rainbow Media to join Canwest, Dore was serving as president of entertainment services. That included oversight of American Movie Classics, IFC and WE TV.

Rainbow president and CEO Joshua Sapan worked closely with Dore for 15 years and remains one of her biggest admirers. “She's a consummate executive,” he said. “She's a leader in the best sense of the word — at one time collaborative and the next time decisive.”

Dore arrived at Toronto-based Canwest in the fall of 2004. What she found was a company with two broadcast networks (Global Television and CH) and eight cable properties. None of them were doing particularly well. “The first order of business was to rescue the two broadcast networks,” Dore said.

The challenge wasn't quite as daunting as her Bravo experience — Canadian viewers were well acquainted with Global Television, but it was in fierce competition with American networks broadcasting across the border. Dore's first task was to wean her audience off Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC.

“It took us the better part of a year but we reworked the Global brand,” Dore said. “We wanted shows to be talked about around the water cooler, and there was space in the market for that.”

So Dore went out and bought some of the hottest shows on the American airwaves, including Heroes, House, Survivor and Deal or No Deal. She also beefed up Global TV's local and national news shows. Canadian audiences responded and were just as happy to watch their favorite TV fare on a domestic network.

The CH network was a different situation. It had a limited, mostly older audience and Dore decided to completely retool the brand from scratch. In April 2007, she made a deal with Comcast Entertainment Group to license E! Entertainment Television and add a Canadian flavor. The new, Canadian E! launched a few months later with familiar shows like Extreme Makeover Home Edition, E! True Hollywood Story, The Simple Life and E! News.

Again, Canadian audiences responded. Even better, the age of female E! viewers dropped six years into the coveted 18-49 demographic.

Canwest purchased competitor Alliance Atlantis in August 2007, bringing in an additional 12 networks. Dore began to sift through the 20 cable properties and decide which brands to keep and which to toss. She turned Canwest's Prime channel into TVTropolis and loaded it with vintage programming like Seinfeld, not unlike TV Land. She also updated the Mystery Network with newer shows like CSI.

Some properties were doing just fine. Dore kept HDTV Canada, The Food Network and National Geographic Channel. Again, the strategy paid off. During its second quarter, Canwest increased the number of top-ten shows in the Toronto/Vancouver market and Calgary market to four and five, respectively.

Employees say Dore is easy to work for because she is consistent. “She sets a tone of collaboration, sets end goals and celebrates group successes,” said Walter Levitt, chief marketing officer for Canwest.

Dore sums up her management style this way: “I believe you hire the best, most creative people you can find and then let them run their own show.”