Success Story: National Geographic Television

On October 15, 2007, National Geographic Television (NGT) completed a successful implementation of Jaguar’s System7 application in NGT Production.

In the mid 1990s NGT was a pioneering client in using Jaguar to manage the large number of contracts related to its film production. There was a pressing need for a rights management system to handle film property dating back to 1965 — in excess of 75,000 contracts and a growth of 2,500 to 3,000 contracts a year. NGT turned to Jaguar, and a history of success has followed.

Jaguar allowed NGT to handle the rights and restrictions related to every component of film production that went into making a film. The result is a comprehensive system that identifies these rights and their availabilities. Using contract form manager, NGT is able to produce all of the contracts in long form for signature. Additionally, Jaguar fills NGT’s need for a detailed calendaring application to manage all of the dates and crucial reminders of key contractual events.

Having completed a successful data migration, System7 is now in live operation for NGT production. The end result, a smooth implementation of System7 and the transition, training and support of 100+ users, is due to the tireless and detailed efforts in the planning, execution and testing done by the project director, Kerry Mysiak, of National Geographic’s Law Business & Governmental Affairs (LB&GA), and project manager, Chrisie Barnes of LB&GA. The final stages were further aided by LB&GA’s Bonnie Enzinna in the areas of application development and rights, and in the application implementation by business applications, headed by the project support leader, Rochelle Forrester, under the aegis of Susan Borke, National Geographic’s LB&GA legal adviser.

National Geographic has been a key Jaguar client for over 12 years and has used the system to manage other businesses as well. Its international sales office, National Geographic Television International, a wholly owned subsidiary in London acting as sales agent for licensors, uses Jaguar to manage all its sales agreements. All NGTI financial general ledger detail activity is generated from Jaguar. With the System7 functionality now in place in NGT Production, short-term plans include generating payments through System7. Longer-term plans are also underway to interface with the film media asset management system to support National Geographic rights clearance, NGTI and Digital Media sales.

National Geographic is an original member of the Jaguar System7 Design Council. System7 is a corporate-sponsored software application that is managed by the Business Solutions division of Information System and supported by the Law Business & Governmental Affairs division of the National Geographic Society.