Elder statesman of entertainment lawyers reflects on decades Hollywood dealmaking as UCLA Entertainment Symposium marks 50 years

Ken Ziffren has logged more than 50 years in Los Angeles’ legal community. He’s represented a wide range of players from the late great showrunner entrepreneur Stephen J. Cannell to the Television Academy to the Directors Guild of America. He’s been on every industry commission imaginable, including a stint as L.A.’s film czar under former Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Ziffren, a 1965 graduate of UCLA Law School, has a long and proud track record as a mentor, consiglieri and key industry strategist on thorny issues. One of his strongest legacies is UCLA Law’s annual Entertainment Symposium, which Ziffren launched back in 1976 as a forum to expose students to the real-world challenges and opportunities for lawyers in Hollywood. The event is now produced by UCLA Law’s Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law, which was established about a dozen years ago. What began as a modest gathering in a UCLA Law School conference room has grown into a daylong event with an array of top speakers and about 600 attendees. The golden anniversary edition will unfold Thursday at UCLA’s Schoenberg Auditorium, with speakers including Imagine Entertainment’s Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, Tom Wolzien, Donald S. Passman, Linda Lichter and many more.

Here, Ziffren weighs in on the tumultuous state of entertainment law in the age of AI, streaming and media consolidation. And he reflects on how much has changed in the industry since the first symposium was held at the midpoint of the Me decade.

I want to talk about hot-button legal issues but let’s start with the UCLA Law symposium. Fifty years of anything is an achievement in academia. What do you remember about the first gathering? What was the burning issue of the day?

In ‘76 we had two things in the TV world that have disappeared. There was a federal tax credit underlying on film and TV. The other thing was [the FCC’s] financial interest in syndication rule that prohibited networks from having a financial interest in any program that they telecast. I’m hot to trot to try to bring back those two things, because the combination of those things I believe led to the best times in our history.

Do you think something like fin-syn or some kind of programming set-aside for independent producers is workable in the modern content eco-system? The fin-syn rules began to sunset in the early 1990s. It’s been a while.

Yes. The idea would be that a streamer has to commit to carry X percent of its schedule for independents. Shelf space is one measurement, or another is budget. They would commit to carry X percent of the programming from independent production companies that have no interest in streaming. And then part two of that is that the only rights the streamer gets from the independent producer are first-cycle. Not rights going out 20 years, but something that is more standard. In the old days, back in ‘76, it was four or four and a half years, which at that point in time meant 88 to 100 episodes.

So all of that favorable regulatory and tax policy in 1976, that was a catalyst that put wind in the sails of filmed entertainment?

What do you think are going to be the most vibrant topics at this year’s 50th anniversary symposium?

I’m on a panel with two very luminous luminary types. Don Passman and Linda Lichter and I are going to do a look back and look forward on what’s changed in 50 years. We’ll have an AI presentation, we’ll have an ethics presentation. And then our guest speakers are Brian Grazer and Ron Howard.

Over the years that you’ve been involved with UCLA and with students, what are your observations about what has changed about their knowledge and understanding of the industry. Do law students today know more about how the entertainment business works than they did 50 years ago?

Let me do a then and now comparison. I was able 50 years ago to have a two minute conversation where we covered all the issues of a network pickup of a pilot to series, because the only issues that then existed were how much for the pilot, how much for the series and how much for the [license fee] bumps each year. Everything else, because of fin-syn, was in essence a published agreement from each of the three networks, and nobody changed a word.

It was totally templated? As if written on a stone tablet?

Yes, yes. Today, it’s impossible. We spend months negotiating that deal because the streamers want these rights, but they’ll give away those rights. They’ll have this issue and that issue. It’s much more complex, and the students don’t understand the weeds, but they do understand the kind of substance of it all. They are much more attentive in terms of knowing that there’s tech issues on top of tech issues on top of financial issues and rights issues. It’s a broader horizon than it was.

AI to me is in what I’ll call Phase 1. Phase 1 in our industry is in essence cost control. That’s where AI plays the most prominent role right now. On the one hand, it gets the unions excited because, in theory, there are fewer opportunities, and there’s less production than there was in a broader sense. The number of series and programs has been declining over the last four years, and that’s unfortunate, but also there’s more opportunity than there was before for an indie producer to be able to compete.

Put it to you this way — if you were presented tomorrow with a non-human program, would you go to the theater or would you turn on the set to watch it, other than for curiosity’s sake? And the answer is probably no. And this isn’t necessarily limited to the U.S., so I think there is a worldwide belief that human H-I instead of AI is still under control, and what we try to do is improve it and make it work for us. That’s the tool argument — that it’s an enhancement, and not something to defeat us.

What I’m hopeful is that in the next two years we have federal legislation that solves the judicial issue. We will have a cacophony of decisions, all of which relate to how we’re going to let AI progress, and we’ll have different views depending upon who the judges are. They will all be looking for answers, which they will find in their own souls, because they can go in either direction. The solution has to be legislation at a federal level, both here and elsewhere, and we’ll have to reach some kind of worldwide compromise on how AI can continue.

Ken, zeroing in a on an issue closer to home. We are both Golden State natives. Los Angeles feels like it’s in rough shape right now. We’ve never seen so much trash on the streets, we’ve never seen such widespread homelessness, encampments and related issues. Do you think the entertainment industry’s struggles are part of L.A.’s problem, and maybe part of the solution?

It’s yes and yes. the answer in the end is we need strong leadership, and I think that could be in the offing. I don’t want to get into [L.A. Mayor] Karen Bass’ politics one way or another, but whether she will be stronger in her second term than her first, or whether [Democratic challenger] Nithya [Raman] will be a stronger mayor — I think it’s possible. And we need to take still another look at our tax policies. It’s old-fashioned to say we’ll throw money at it and it’ll all get solved, but there has to be some intelligent approach that will require capital. But it’s absolutely necessary, so that we all have better standard of living.

Anything else about legal trends or plans for the symposium that you’d like to add?

We’re in a dynamic situation. I still have hope that we can get more diversity in the industry, and that we aren’t going to be run by a machine.