As part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration, we are highlighting some of our clients and friends who have had a significant influence on Fivestone Entertainment.  None have had a bigger impact on Fivestone than Thom Beers.  We’ve worked with Thom through many phases of his career: as the Founder of OP, as President of Fremantle, and as an entrepreneur.  Thom gave us our first big shot… And we hit the mark!

If tough jobs in terrible weather had a pitchman, Thom Beers would be the guy yelling “roll cameras”. The Emmy-winning mega producer is widely credited with defining the genre coined as Testosterone TV. The high-stakes, high-seas, high-horsepower world of shows like Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Bering Sea Gold, and a long list of other series where the weather is bad, the jobs are worse, and everyone somehow still says, “Let’s rock!”

Through his company, Original Productions (OP), Thom didn’t just make shows, he built a genre where daring was the star and danger was part of the casting call. He also played a massive role in shaping Fivestone Entertainment’s story.  A referral from CBS Creative Director Shannon Mattaro led to meeting Thom at Original Productions, which turned into Fivestone’s first big job: creating three sizzle reels for Thom’s bold idea to bundle his shows into a cable channel called The Block.

That opportunity led to supporting hundreds of hours of episodic TV and even our first network launch package when years later, Beers made another big move from production company founder to President of Fremantle North America. He brought Fivestone in to pitch a full broadcast package for a new 24-hour game show network: Buzzr.  It became the first of many channel brands we created with Fremantle. And in peak Thom Beers fashion, Buzzr’s parent company was registered under the name Big Balls, LLC — which might be the most accurate corporate title in entertainment history. Because that’s Thom: A creative with stones!