After a 20-year run, Broadview Media has technically closed its doors?although negotiations are underway that would allow its former key employee to continue serving clients.
If the talks with Minneapolis-based management are successful, Rich Hawksworth would purchase the equipment and assume the lease of its current Michigan Avenue space.
Until a decision is made, Hawksworth will continue to run the business under the Broadview banner as an independent contractor.
“We’re not turning away new business,” said Hawksworth, former executive producer/general manager who’d been with the company throughout its various incarnations since 1986.
Management’s decision to close had nothing to do with the health of the business?it grossed a respectable $2.5 million annually?but rather its diminished interest in the AV business.
The Broadview Institute, as the parent company is now called, is absorbed in expanding in the post-secondary educational school market, such as the Utah Career College it owns in Salt City.
The Minneapolis studio, always the linchpin of the company business, remains, not as a production studio but as a training facility for a strategic partnership with the Minneapolis School of Business’ digital video curriculum.
Broadview had employed 10-20 fulltime and freelance staffers over the last several years. It has 7,500-sq. ft. of space in a conveniently located building a few steps east of Michigan Ave.
Over the past 18 months it had spent $300,000 in adding new and upgrading equipment.
Its most visible client since 1999 and representing 20% of its total business, has been HGTV’s series “New Spaces.”
“Their contract is basically over as soon as we deliver the final shows by the end of the month,” said Hawksworth. He estimates that Broadview has produced 150 “New Spaces” episodes over the past seven years.
The majority of Broadview’s media production clients have been corporate, associations, nonprofits, health care and a focus on the educational market.
It offers full-service production, including editing, audio, interactive media development and it was the leading provider of satellite feeds for news outlets CNN, Bloomberg and Fox.
Hawksworth said, “The reason we were around so long was that we were a very diversified business.”
Regardless of where he lands, at the present address or somewhere else, Hawksworth plans on having his own company and continuing to serve his clients’ needs.
