Paramount Pictures is going back to its roots, returning oversight of licensing to the studio.
For the last three years, Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products had managed the licensing and merchandising initiatives out of the New York offices. The move back to the studio would give Paramount direct oversight of its properties.
Paramount Licensing will oversee worldwide licensing and merchandising for films and related product categories, including Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, DreamWorks, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The efforts will be handled out of the studio’s Hollywood offices.
The licensing program will include a variety of product categories, including consumer products, book publishing, themed restaurants, amusement parks, live stage plays and film clip licensing.
Michael Bartok, executive vice president of licensing for Paramount, will lead the division. He reports to Rob Moore, Paramount’s president of worldwide marketing, distribution and home entertainment.
The new oversight will help Paramount grow its licensing efforts, Bartok said.
“Having a dedicated licensing group was going to put focus on the studio,” he said.
And with the newly restructured division, Paramount plans to expand its licensing beyond tent pole films to include its broad base of properties, such as its existing library, which has more than 2,000 titles.
“Before, the focus was ‘lets look at the big properties and dedicate our resources to that,'” Bartok said. “That is still a major focus of our group, but really our sole purpose is to leverage all the intellectual properties of Paramount. We are putting a lot of effort into making sure we support as many releases as possible.”
Beyond Paramount Pictures, that includes movie releases under DreamWorks, MTV Film and Nickelodeon, he said.
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