CMT executive has 'Gone Country' from a Pittsburgh home base
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Bob Kusbit, head of development at CMT Network, in his Strip District office.
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Where do the movers and shakers who run national TV networks reside? Los Angeles and New York, of course. And, it turns out, Pittsburgh, at least for one executive.
Bob Kusbit, head of development for MTV Networks' Country Music Television, works out of a Strip District office decorated with pop culture detritus from his MTV past, including framed photos of pop stars, VJs and a full-size arcade golf game, a gift from former "TRL" host Carson Daly. (Actually, Daly's former girlfriend, Jennifer Love Hewitt, gave Daly the game in a bid to keep him from going out to bars to play it. When Kusbit left MTV in 2002, Daly gave him Golden Tee '99.)
Kusbit joined CMT a year ago, charged with developing the network's new programs, including "Gone Country," premiering at 8 tonight. The reality show takes seven performers not known for making country music -- Bobby Brown, Carnie Wilson, Dee Snider, Diana DeGarmo, Julio Iglesias Jr., Sisqo and Maureen McCormick -- and puts them through challenges to see which one does the best job of "going country." Country music star John Rich is the judge.
In tonight's premiere, Brown and McCormick, an unlikely pair if ever there was one, bond over their shared love of cigarettes. (Yes, I, too, was disappointed to learn the former Marcia Brady is a future cancer patient.)
"It was pitched as a crossover show," Kusbit said of "Gone Country." "Part of my mission is trying to figure out how to mix music and reality television. It's different ways of presenting music on the channel so it's not just music videos and shows that follow artists."
The goal is to broaden the network's audience beyond country music fans.
Kusbit does much of his work out of the Strip office, where he receives packages that contain footage from assorted shows that he'll watch and give notes on.
"The way it works at MTV and MTV Networks, these roles are much more hands-on creative than you might see at other places," Kusbit said. He receives an executive producer credit on some shows, including "Gone Country." "I've rewritten the [opening narration] numerous times for 'Gone Country.' "
Kusbit grew up in Latrobe, and after graduating from Clarion State College (now Clarion University) in 1983, he worked as a local news producer, including stints in Altoona and Columbus, Ohio, before landing at WTAE in the mid-1980s.
"I was doing this show in Columbus that was half news, half fun-and-games," Kusbit said. "If we didn't have news, I'd do something like send a reporter down a chimney live on Christmas Eve to prove Santa could fit."
Kusbit realized his calling may not lie in a TV newsroom.
"I've always been more of a TV guy than a journalist," he said. "When I got to Pittsburgh, I thought it was a lot of fun, but maybe news is more dry than I want it to be."
In 1988, Kusbit was hired to work on "Good Day New York" on the Fox station in Manhattan. After a stint at WNBC's "Live at 5," Kusbit returned to Pittsburgh, got married and started traveling, using Pittsburgh as a home base. He worked on Gordon Elliott's syndicated talk show and served as president of Maury Povich's production company for four years, all the while based in Pittsburgh.
"When I started, you never threw out, 'I'm calling you from Pittsburgh,' but as people got to know you, it didn't matter as much," he said.
A headhunter for MTV came calling in 1997 as the network prepared to open its Times Square studio. Kusbit moved his family to Connecticut but kept a home in Western Pennsylvania. In addition to creating "TRL" with another MTV executive, as vice president of MTV Productions Kusbit oversaw the network's special events, including the spring break specials.
"I called Jerry Springer and said, 'What do you think of Springer Break?' " Kusbit said, remembering the inception of one of the channel's more memorable stunts.
In 2002, Kusbit decided to strike out on his own, forming a production company, One Louder.
"Did you ever see 'Spinal Tap'? There's a scene where Christopher Guest as Nigel Tufnel says, 'See this amplifier? It goes to 11, it's one louder than everybody else,'" Kusbit said. "My theory at MTV was always that everybody else is going to 10. We're MTV. We have to go one louder. When I left, the name One Louder was available for my company, so I took it."
Kusbit moved his family back to the Pittsburgh area in 2002 and ran One Louder from his Strip District office (One Louder also has an office in New York). Shows produced by One Louder for MTV include "Trailer Fabulous" (makeover of a trailer home), "Boiling Points" (hidden-camera competition) and "Made" (real-life teens transform their lives with the help of MTV, becoming the football player, cheerleader, rock star, etc., they dreamed they could be).
"I always say that for the spring breaks and all that stuff, 'Made' is the show that I hope can ease my way into heaven by helping kids change their lives."
Although his job may seem far removed from the newsroom setting he once worked in, Kusbit sees similarities.
"For me, reality TV is story-telling," he said. "It's evolved into not just documentary, but very thought out story-telling and character development."
In late 2006, when MTV Networks' executives asked Kusbit to take a top spot at CMT, he agreed as long as he could remain based in Pittsburgh and maintain his ties to One Louder (his production company doesn't pitch shows to CMT). Consequently, Kusbit is on the road a lot, visiting One Louder in New York, a CMT development office in Los Angeles and the CMT headquarters in Nashville. US Airways' decision to drop its direct Pittsburgh-to-Nashville flight has complicated his travel schedule, but through all the years he has still managed to be a coach on his 12-year-old son's football team, missing few games.
Kusbit said he'd like to see more TV production come to Pittsburgh, but for the reality shows he works on to film here there would have to be Pittsburgh-based producers with reality-show experience to oversee local productions.
"I would love nothing more than to do one here," he said. "With all the talent in this town, all the facilities in this town, there's no reason shows can't come out to this town."
Kusbit also said he needn't be the only network executive to work out of a city that's not New York or L.A. An aspiring cable executive just has to pay his dues in those production centers first.
"Young kids will come up to me and say they want to do this, and I always say, you can't do it out of Pittsburgh when you start. You've got to go and skin your knees on a big show, become a production assistant and then a producer, and then, the way the world is today [with communication technology], you can do anything. But it's really hard at the beginning."
Kusbit is the only national network executive I know of who regularly works out of Pittsburgh, but companies with a national profile also have a presence here, including closed captioners VITAC in Cecil and PMI on First Avenue.
PMI transmits 42 hours of TV programming from Downtown daily, including NBC Universal's syndicated shows and cable network programs. The production company takes all the pieces of what's seen on air -- the show, the commercials, the promos -- and puts them together and sends them out via satellite.
PMI also transmits AMG TV, a network carried by broadcast stations nationwide, 24 hours a day. Locally, low-power station WBGN carries some programming from AMG, which launched in August and is carried by low-power, independent and network affiliate stations.
PMI president David Case said his company is the third largest distributor of syndicated programs in the country.
"There's quite a bit of stuff that goes through here," Case said. "It takes a fair amount of people and coordination to get it to happen. No one would ever think it comes out of Pittsburgh."
Just as Comcast moved C-SPAN 2 to the digital tier last year, the cable company has now moved GSN from the less expensive expanded basic to the more expensive digital starter tier. How many more channels will Comcast migrate to digital? A Comcast spokesman did not know.
On Tuesday, GSN moved to Channel 179 on traditional Comcast systems. On former Adelphia systems, GSN remains on Channel 108, where Adelphia long carried it. In Monroeville, where GSN could be found on Channel 59 and Channel 108, it is now only on Channel 108.
This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Life is Wild," "Lipstick Jungle" and WPCW in digital. Read it online at post-gazette.com/tv.
First Published January 25, 2008 12:00 am
