Big-name advertisers wanted | Resort Sports Network hopes new owners can boost ad revenues
In November, a group of investors agreed to buy RSN, which broadcasts outdoor-themed programming at more than 100 resorts in North America, for an undisclosed amount. For Dumais, the deal is great news for the company he's helped run since the early 1990s. For the past six years, operations at the privately held company have been overseen by Advent International, a private equity firm in Boston which in 2000 helped line up $20 million in venture funding for the company. Dumais says that while Advent has been a good steward of the company, RSN and its roughly $7 million in annual revenues were small potatoes for a firm that routinely oversees deals in the hundreds of millions of dollars. "We'd fallen off their radar screen," Dumais says.
The new ownership group, which includes ski resort owners in Utah and Colorado, along with media moguls like John Cooney, an executive at New York-based film company EUE Screen Gems, brings more direct ownership — and more hands-on oversight — to RSN. "From our point of view, we embrace these guys," says Dumais, a 51-year-old Bowdoin graduate who worked as a filmmaker in New York City before buying WSKI, a local television station at Sugarloaf/USA in Carrabassett Valley, in 1986.
The company will stay in Portland, where roughly half its 70 employees work, and no radical shifts in direction are planned, says Dumais.
Dumais hopes the new owners will help RSN become more visible, particularly among brands that want to reach RSN's active, affluent audience: Infiniti, Lexus, American Express, Dewar's and so on. Dumais says RSN is doing "better than break even," but admits it's difficult to depend on the notoriously fickle media industry, where advertiser dollars appear and disappear at seemingly random intervals. What's more, RSN has yet to crack Madison Avenue, the center of the advertising universe. "If you're a media buyer in New York City, you're getting called on by a whole host of networks, all of which you've heard of," Dumais says. "There's no demand for RSN because there's no awareness." The new investment group has a variety of ties to the media world, and Dumais hopes those connections will offer RSN a better shot at boosting its visibility within the ad community.
Among the first goals of RSN under its new ownership group— the deal is expected to close Feb. 5, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission — is to beef up its New York-based sales force. An entrée into Madison Avenue would be a welcome development for RSN, not only because it would mean more visibility for the company, but also because Dumais says it would mean an instant bump in the company's financial health. "We're selling less than a third of our available [commercial space] on a national level," he says. "If we simply sell the inventory we have, it'll flow straight to the bottom line."
Above all, Dumais sees the new ownership group as a way to allow RSN to continue chasing new goals, such as the development of new programming or specialized content — from New England ski conditions to reviews of Aspen restaurants — for cell phones and digital media players. "Without this, we'd be spinning our wheels," he says. "We needed a lever to get us moving."
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