barney and friends cast 1995 mexican girl

Barney and friends cast 1995 mexican girl series#
Barney and friends cast 1995 mexican girl tv#

He figured that Lyons Group netted $20 million last year.Ĭarlson may have been working with more inside information about the Lyons Group than most outsiders. When CPB President Richard Carlson testified at the House appropriations subcommittee in January, his estimate landed in the same ballpark.

Barney and friends cast 1995 mexican girl tv#

“That translates to about $25 million in royalties.” And that’s before Lyons Group subtracts costs or gives public TV its negotiated 30 percent cut of certain royalties. Say Lyons’ cut was 10 percent, Raugust continues. And the rights holder - Lyons Group, in this case - usually gets royalties of 5 to 12 percent on the wholesale figure, according to Raugust. If retail sales were $500 million, that would mean about $250 million wholesale. “Now we’re trying to extend it at a plateau, as a classic character.” Raugust figures Barney-related retail sales have now fallen to about $100 million a year.īut let’s go back to the Elvis Year.

Barney didn’t sell as well in 1994, he adds. “We refer to it internally as the Elvis Year,” says Lyons Group spokesman Russell Mack. The general word in the licensing industry is that retailers moved $500 million or more in Barney products in 1993, his best year, she says.

Barney and friends cast 1995 mexican girl series#

The Lyons Group, originator of Barney and co-producer of the series for PBS, is a privately held company and does not release figures, but Raugust walked Current through a series of ballpark estimates. Yet, having a clue about Barney’s real income reveals the magnitude of “backend” ancillary income and the factors that limit its potential, even in the rare case of a certified commercial hit. It’s easy to make claims about licensing income because few producers reveal their net revenue, and gross revenue estimates are usually offered by businesses with every incentive to brag. “Basically, they’re overstating the case as far as merchandising being able to support PBS,” says Karen Raugust, editor of The Licensing Letter, a trade journalist often cited by Jarvik. “It’s a figure of speech: ‘Get your money from Barney.’ ”īut among the literal-minded, Pressler’s claim that Barney’s income could supercede the $285 million CPB appropriation does seem exaggerated. Jarvik acknowledges that Barney by himself isn’t generating quite that much cash, and complains about the “dishonest literal-mindedness of people in public broadcasting.” Jarvik’s point is that Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor and many other “private parties” altogether are selling “a pretty hefty load of stuff,” he says.

“If the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had gotten 30 percent of that, it would have had a lot more than they got from the federal government.” Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) began employing the story late last year, Barney was not just a parable for public TV’s supposed indifference to honestly earned, red-blooded greenbacks, but also evidence that it needed no federal assistance.īarney “made a billion dollars in one year,” Pressler said on Nightline in January. The story began turning up in articles by Jarvik and speeches about “profiteering” by Sen. What became Barneygate first appeared in a 1993 Washington Post article pointing out that PBS had missed getting a big share of the jackpot in Barney merchandise. “Barneygate” seems likely to live on in pubcasting history, though no one knows today whether the furor will be remembered for introducing public TV to big-time product licensing, for gravely injuring its reputation at a crucial political moment, or for its sheer one-time-only weirdness.

In other words, public TV will get to broadcast the show virtually free. This means PBS will get back at least $1.75 million by the end of 1998, he estimates.

The network renegotiated its deal with Barney‘s producers, receiving a guarantee that it will recoup its spending on the program’s new season after four years, says Larry Rifkin, the Connecticut PTV programmer who brought the series to PBS. “When they hear that CPB is not getting any of it, they know somebody is getting rich, and the federal government paid them $2 million! It’s a crystal-clear case that people can understand.”īarney’s jackpot held fascination not only for Jarvik and his readers in the Senate but also for PBS. “Everyone who has kids knows how much they cost,” says conservative researcher Laurence Jarvik. The inflated numbers, however, make an indelible connection with the perceptions of moms and dads who have shopped for Barney products. The mountains of money that Barney & Friends “brings in” annually, as cited by senators, columnists and ordinary people alike, have grown from hundreds of thousands to billions of dollars, though the actual net income to the show’s producers is more likely in the tens of millions, and just a fraction of that is available to public TV. Of all the facts, half-truths and distortions used by public broadcasting’s opponents in the ongoing contest to redefine the field’s public image, the Barney Billions seem the most enduring and damaging.