Jim Osborne is a product of the mailroom. The veteran talent agent, who has been named CEO of the newly christened Independent Artist Group, got his start in the representation field the old-fashioned way — by working his way of out of the ICM mailroom and assistant pool.
Osborne has spent the past dozen years at APA, rising to partner in 2015 and to president in 2020. As of today, he advances to the top post, as APA combines into a new entity with Dennis Arfa’s music touring powerhouse Artist Group International. The deal brings such superstars into the fold as Billy Joel, metallica, Smashing Pumpkins, linkin Park and the Strokes, and was orchestrated in part by investor Ron Burkle and his Yucaipa Co. (which owned Artist Intl. and invested in APA in 2020).
RELATED: APA Merges With Touring Powerhouse Artist Group Intl., Rebrands as Independent Artist Group
Osborne takes the baton from longtime APA leader Jim Gosnell, who will now serve as one of three board members of the agency, alongside Osborne and Arfa. It’s a fraught time to be leading a tenpercentery in Hollywood, with the writers strike raging on and SAG-AFTRA possibly to follow, layoffs hitting most of the major media giants and the general unease over the disruption spurred by the industry’s transition from linear TV to on-demand streaming platforms.
As Osborne moves into the CEO seat, he spoke with PvNew about the vision for the enlarged agency, what he’s telling writer clients these days, why he’s encouraged by Hollywood’s post-pandemic competitive landscape and the key lessons he learned (and item he saved) from working on the desk of the legendary Ed Limato.
APA has been in business with Ron Burkle for a while. What was the genesis of this partnership with Artist Group Intl.?
An introduction was made to the AGI team probably a year and a half ago. And we flew to New York and met with them. At first, to be honest, they were very hesitant as they had not had a partnership with an agency in the content space. And they were really the top of the game. They are the greatest independent touring agency. With time, we started to build a relationship through shared goals. We started to work with them on a number of their clients. And they got to see how we operated and through trust and common destiny, so to speak, and being in the trenches together. We built a really strong relationship and it has just grown and grown. We were working with a number of their clients already on the content side: Jane’s Addiction, Perry Farrell, Billy Joel. So it started to become natural and not forced, which is the key for any agencies to come together in the right way. We were already working together in a very collegial way.
Can you give me a time frame for when you when you started to get serious about bringing the companies together?
The second ICM was removed from the agency landscape [by the sale to CAA in 2022] it was so clear to us that there was the need for someone else to emerge. And so for us to scale up, this was the perfect match because [AGI] didn’t have a content side. We didn’t have the stadium acts that they represent. And so, from the second that happened, we started figuring out, how do we make a move? How do we take advantage of this and fill that spot which is something we’d always thought about, but it just became the path became very clear. And again, we’re not anywhere near done yet. This is one step of many steps.
How does your agency compete in the land of giants? How does this deal position APA to be more competitive?
For us, it’s just a very hands-on business. And I think that kind of old school client-artist relationship — a lot of artists respond to that. And that’s what’s needed in this kind of environment. So for us, there’s other areas of the business that we’re not in, which the other agencies have stepped into and grown their overall portfolio. So that’s always a possibility. But for us, this is a wonderful blending of two companies. And as you know, we’ve hired 17 new agents across multiple divisions in the last year [after] ICM was acquired. We did that on our own, and we’re going to keep growing in areas that support the other divisions. So there’s definitely a need and if you look at our client list, we’ve been extremely diligent and successful with a number of artists that came from other agencies.
What is your elevator pitch to propsective new clients?
Now more than ever, all the world’s a screen, right? You can live in so many different places, and it’s actually necessary to maintain your brand. And for us, what we’re really good at is brand extension. So taking someone with great visibility in one area and monetizing that by growing other sides of that artist. I mean, Mary J. Blige just had a mega hit on Lifetime, where we took one of her songs [“Real Love”] as a piece of IP and built a Lifetime film out of it. We’re really good at brand extensions, and working with artists to grow their own companies. Sometimes that kind of work can get lost [for clients] because it takes a lot of work.
The Mary J. Blige project is an interesting example of entertainment ideas coming through unusual channels.
These artists which are in essence brands, and they have a transportable audience, right? The network or the movie studio is just a pass-through entity for their creativity. It can live in multiple places. And that’s the type of thing we really engage in and build. And that for us is actually very fulfilling. Gary Oldman said to me, ‘You enjoy this so much, you must be diseased.’
How are you navigating all of these changes amid the writers strike? How are you juggling the level of chaos in the business right now?
Very cautiously and very measured, and taking necessary steps. But oddly enough, sometimes there’s a certain amount of serendipity because we started so long ago, courting and trying to find a pathway to come together with the great partners at AGI. They’re going to be a great addition to us as we weather a writer’s strike. They’re in full swing with big major tours. And it’s a wonderful timing for everyone as we navigate through difficult times. But I’m always an optimist. I think we’ll get through this and be back stronger than ever in terms of production and the needed output from all of the networks and studios.
After this deal, how big will the agency be in terms of number of agents? Will we still be neighbors in West L.A. or do you plan to move offices?
Yes. We’re still going to be neighbors and AGI is going to move into our New York office. We will be probably 325-340 people. It’s not just the size of this deal that is important but its impact on who we represent.
What are you telling your writer clients right now? And what are you hearing from your writer clients right now in week 8 of the WGA strike?
We fully support them. These are very, very serious issues. The same with SAG-AFTRA. There has to be a fair renumeration for these artists as creators that can go on for decades. They need to be connected to that. So we fully support them and we just all have to get through it together.
Are you seeing an uptick in interest in unscripted content?
Yes, and also we’re trying very hard to ramp up as many seats as possible in that arena for our clients to take advantage of the buying appetite that has definitely increased. When you see the viewing patterns start to change in the audience based on availability of content, and it does create a shift. It just simply does.
Jim, were you one of those people who told themselves as a teenager, “One day I will be CEO of a talent agency?” What was your path to becoming a CEO?
I started in the mailroom at ICM. I was desperate to work for Ed Limato. I was Ed’s third assistant, second assistant, first assistant. I just wanted to survive. And I wound up having the greatest mentor and friend. It was challenging, but he always had your back and was just the greatest influence I’ve had in my career. Funnily enough, all of Ed’s old assistants do a dinner every year for him. We all come together, and we do a dinner and we talk about Ed. The list is pretty vast.
I was very lucky to have that kind of family created in the agency world. And I still talk to those guys every week. It informs my decision on many things. [APA chairman] Jim Gosnell has been an incredible added mentor to me who gave me a wonderful opportunity here and encouraged me to grow. But I got very lucky. Getting to work with Ed Limato really was transformative in a business sense and also a personal sense.
So my question is, do you all wear silk pajamas to the dinner or is there a designated pajama representative?
Osborne: You’re not going to believe this. I have his white shoes. I have the white shoes that [Limato] wore in his Vanity Fair article. They did a big picture of him in a white suit. Nobody has the silk pajamas. But I got the white shoes.
