Re: Kansas firm sells candid Wal-Mart videos

Another Wall Street Journal article with a little more info and a video report with Mr. Flagler in it.

By the way, Mike Flagler sold the company in 2006 to two employees before Walmart dumped them which happened only 9 days after selling it:

"Candid Camera: Trove of Videos Vexes Wal-Mart"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120770260120100121.html?mod=WSJBlog

Couple snippets:

"The production company's founder and former owner, Mike
Flagler, says he was hired on a handshake in the 1970s to help produce the events Wal-Mart holds each year for managers and shareholders, including entertainment portions of its annual meeting and important sales meetings. He filmed them as well.

He says he rebuffed Wal-Mart's suggestions that he reuse the tapes to save money. Instead, he held onto recordings of commercials, executive speeches and manager hijinks.

Corporate records typically are closely controlled through legal contracts that restrict access and use. Mr. Flagler says he never signed a contract with Wal-Mart for the production or video work. Flagler Productions says that that arrangement left ownership and control of the films with it."

and

"The video library might have remained under wraps if a new Wal-Mart executive hadn't decided to hire another company to stage a musical production for its 2006 stockholders' meeting. The decision sharply curbed Flagler's role. Wal-Mart dumped Flagler altogether as a producer in late 2006, nine days after Mr. Flagler sold the company for an undisclosed sum to two employees, Mary Lyn Villanueva and Gregory A. Pierce.

The current owners say Wal-Mart accounted for more than 90% of Flagler's revenue. The company's bank called in a loan, and the pair dismissed their 16-person work force, Ms. Villanueva says.

Flagler offered to sell the whole video archive to Wal-Mart for several million dollars, Ms. Villanueva says, although she won't disclose the exact price. Wal-Mart countered with an offer of $500,000, arguing the footage wouldn't be of interest elsewhere, the two owners say.

They sold their 20,000-square-foot production facility and moved into an 800-square-foot rented office. They now hope to sustain the company by selling access to the Wal-Mart videos. They charge $250 an hour for video research, and additional fees for a DVD copy of film clips."

Randy