On-Demand is In-Demand; What the Boom in On-Demand Entertainment Means to the Industry

As general manager of GameTap, Stuart Snyder is charged with the day-to-day management of the marketing, programming, development and distribution of the broadband entertainment network.  With his innovative talent, Snyder leads the first network of its kind that allows subscribers to access everything from early arcades to console games and PC titles using a broadband-connected PC.  GameTap games include everything from Pong, Pac-Man and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, to Sonic and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Turner has licensed nearly 1,200 games from 24 publishers, including Activision, Atari, EA, Eidos Interactive, G-Mode, Intellivision Lives, Midway, Namco, SEGA, TAITO, Team 17, Ubisoft and Vivendi Universal Games.  Complementing the library of games, GameTap’s original programming features an exclusive mix of magazine, reality, and lifestyle shows, interviews with the who’s who of gaming, celebrity features, and all-new “game trailers” for the GameTap service.

A veteran entertainment industry executive and innovator, Snyder most recently served as president and CEO of Cinar Corporation, an animation, live-action and education production/distribution company based in Montreal, Canada.  Under his leadership, the company instituted and completed a successful turnaround and sale process for its public shareholders. 

Snyder is currently a board member of Turnstile Entertainment in New York , a company he co-founded which creates and produces family entertainment programming featuring popular brands, such as Clifford the Big Red Dog LIVE and the soon to be released DVD toddler series, Baby Road Trip.   He had previously served as President and COO of WWF Entertainment, Inc., the world renowned television and sports entertainment franchise.  As president of USA Home Entertainment in 1999, Snyder was on the team that successfully marketed and released the critically acclaimed film, Being John Malkovich, and green lit the Academy Award-winning® film Traffic. 

Earlier in his career, he was President and COO of Feld Entertainment, the world’s largest producer of live family entertainment, featuring Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey and Disney on Ice.  Prior to that, Snyder built the hugely successful home entertainment division for Turner Broadcasting, which during his tenure distributed The Beatles Anthology Series, The Swan Princess, Ken Burns’ Baseball, Gettysburg and PBS Home video, increasing revenues from $20 million to $350 million.  In 1988, Snyder joined LIVE Home Video, where he was part of the team that grew the company from $50 million in revenues to $400 million.  His professional entertainment career began at MGM/UA as head of the Non-Theatrical Division and later moved to its Home Entertainment Division. 

GameTap, a TBS, Inc. entertainment network, provides subscribers an “all-you-can-play” gaming service on their PC’s via broadband connection.  To access GameTap, players securely download and install Turner-developed client software from http://web.archive.org/web/20060211020509/http://www.gametap.com/, the gateway to the GameTap vault. Because games reside securely on the PC, they act just as if they do on the console or at the arcade. GameTap supports navigation and game play using keyboard and mouse, as well as most USB peripherals.

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, is a major producer of news and entertainment product around the world and the leading provider of programming for the basic cable industry.