Jennifer Caserta
Executive Vice President and General Manager, IFCJennifer Caserta, as executive vice president and general manager, runs the day-to-day operations of IFC, directing all of its efforts relative to program development, production, scheduling, marketing and digital-media initiatives.
She also serves as executive producer for such IFC original productions as The IFC Media Project, The Whitest Kids U' Know, Z Rock and a number of Web series on IFC.com, including Lunchbox. Caserta, who also spearheaded the creation of Automat, the late-night original programming block designed for a younger male audience.
Under her leadership, IFC also has made a number of key acquisitions, notably Arrested Development and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Jennifer Caserta grew up "obsessed with
television" and, as part of the MTV generation, "fascinated by cable."
Yet, facing the crossroads, she nearly chose a different path than the
one that has made her IFC's executive vice president and general
manager.
"Television was not my first career choice,"
recalled the 38-year-old New Jersey native, who brims with enthusiasm
whether discussing her childhood or her learning curve at IFC. "I went
to the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan as a dance major.
Afterwards I had to make a decision about whether to pursue dance as a
career."
Looking back from the vantage point of her
current post - "the best job I've ever had" - the choice to take media
and marketing at Hunter College was the right one.
"I knew right away I wanted to be a marketer,"
she said. "I loved the breaks between the shows- the on-air promotions,
the messaging - as much as the shows." (That's still true today. Caserta
sometimes watches IFC, even though she's seen the programming, just to
see what comes in between. "I love dissecting the breaks," she said.)
Caserta gained
marketing experience at the Radio Advertising Bureau, Westwood One, Food
Network and Oxygen Media before reaching a turning point as vice
president of ad sales marketing for Court TV. "Every step opened my eyes
to other things," she said. "At Court TV, I moved into a network with
wide distribution that had been around but was trying to reinvent itself
with its advertisers. It prepared me for the future in a huge way."
Evan Shapiro, now president of IFC &
Sundance Channel, hired her at Court TV on a recommendation that he was
initially reluctant to follow. "I went into the meeting not wanting to
hire her, which made for a very awkward first conversation," he
recalled. But, he said, Caserta is "the most tenacious person I've ever
met"; she followed up with a phone call the next night that went for
over two hours. "By the end I'd decided she was someone I wanted on my
team."
David Epstein, now senior vice president of
sales planning for NBC Universal Cable Entertainment, was working at
Court TV when Caserta arrived. "She's upbeat and enthusiastic and she's a
TV person - we'd talk about TV trivia, and there are not a lot of women
who know TV trivia like she does," he said. "So even before I knew
whether she was capable and smart, I liked her as a person. But then she
is smart and has the talent too."
In 2004, Rainbow Media brought Caserta in as
vice president of marketing for IFC. She started working her way up the
marketing chain but, by this point, she knew she wanted "to have it all"
- to be involved in every aspect of a network's being. Shapiro, by then
at IFC, recognized this and recommended to their bosses that she become
general manager for its music network, Fuse. "It was a great challenge
for her," he said. "You can only grow so far under your mentor. Then you
have to spread your wings."
Caserta was ready to fly. "I did a lot of
interesting things and expanded my portfolio," she said. "It was an
opportunity to prove that I was more than just a marketer, not just to
the executives at Rainbow, but to myself."
Caserta learned how to run a business, which
she said is very different than managing a department. An optimist, she
had found it easy to make friends, motivate and mentor on the job. But
at Fuse, "for the first time I had to have tough conversations with
people," she said.
When Shapiro began thinking about succession
planning at IFC, he said, "I stole her back," making Caserta IFC's
executive vice president of marketing, communications, scheduling and
alternative programming while she waited for the big prize, IFC's GM
job.
Finally, in July 2008, she ascended to the GM
spot. She spent the first six months assessing the entire network. "I
took a long, hard look. You have to resist the impulse to just make
changes, and now I was looking at things from a larger perspective."
One area Caserta wanted to emphasize was
alternative, "off-kilter" comedy and culture in the network's brand. "I
don't fancy myself a programmer but I love having input," she said. "I
think I have a good sensibility. I'm not a male 18-49 but I consume
television like one. I don't watch television like a girl. And beyond my
own taste, I'm able to remove myself and think about what the audience
wants."
Among the original programming projects that
debuted last year was the comedic musical miniseries Bollywood Hero.
But nothing generated more buzz for the IFC than the epic six-part
Monty Python documentary Almost the Truth (The Lawyers Cut) and
live Python reunion. "When I was presented with this, I immediately
thought this could put IFC on the map," she said. "Talk about your
off-kilter sensibility, this matched perfectly with us. And the Pythons
are still relevant today."
Meanwhile, Caserta was also dealing with the
collapsing economy. "Even if our business is strong, our partners are
affected," she said. "We have to be more resourceful and become more
flexible."
IFC is finding innovative ways to work with
partners, like getting Bollywood star Chris Kattan to star in a
series of interstitial spots promoting the Palm Pre during Bollywood
Hero. "We're using our talent and integrating our advertising
more," she said. "The way things were done in the past is not the way
things will be done in the future."
