Biographie
During a fourteen year tenure at the American Broadcasting Companies Peter functioned in many capacities, beginning as a line producer, then a division head, assistant to the President (network) and finally an Executive Vice President and special assistant to the Chairman of the Board.
As a line producer he was credited with some thirty MOWs for ABC and supervised the production of at least fifty more. "Victory at Entebbe," "Eleanor and Franklin: The Early Years," and "Kiss Yesterday Goodbye" were just a few of the outstanding works Emmy nominated projects he oversaw. Peter was frequently sought out to bring troubled projects in on time and under budget.
Peter spent several years under the tutelage of Av Westin in the News division helping to develop the magazine format in news. The revamping of 20/20 and GMA are much to his credit. During this time he received a PhD from the New York University in the psychology of communications.
In 1986 Peter left ABC to join The Film Company and became active in the development of projects for theatrical release as well as for television. Several projects included "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," "Rocky III, The American Dream Continues," an half hour Emmy nominee for Television. In 1986 Peter took over directorial as well as production responsibility for the behind-the-scenes materials that The Film Company produced for all five of the major studios. He directed a number of television commercials, both locally and nationally. He was essentially responsible for the Film Company's entry into the world of commercial production.
In 1987 Peter merged The Film Company into a partnership with Odyssey Entertainment where he masterminded the purchase of a nationally prominent commercial production company and facility. The long established Coast Productions became Odyssey Filmakers with Peter Bergmann as President. Within six months, Odyssey Filmakers had made inroads in the international World of advertising by doing million dollar campaigns for Pepsi Cola, General Tire, and McDonalds as well as many less costly spots for other advertisers. After eighteen months at the helm of this company it had achieved gross sales of one million dollars per month.
Peter decided to return to the challenge of developing projects for television production and joined Major Arts, a division of Paramount Communications as head of its television division. He spearheaded a drive to create Movies of the Week for Major Arts which featured family style entertainment.
In 1994 he joined the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University to inaugurate a unique program in Electronic Filmmaking and Digital Video Design. This challenging program integrates the knowledge of broadcasting with the world wide web, special effects and computer enhancements so integral to today's new media. It brings under one umbrella all of the technology so essential to the digital domain. The program anticipated the communications fields of the twenty-first century in both information dissemination and entertainment. The experience at a Academic institution enabled Peter to pass on the knowledge that he has accumulated in twenty-five years in the business, while still directing and producing in the industry.
It is during this time that Peter pursued the development of "convergence" in the media and the Internet. He consulted with ABC News and helped to develop ABC NEWS.com. His students at Fairleigh were involved in the initial web designs for the site. Peter established a relationship with Exodus, the co-located company, and consulted in their growth business. He worked with ATT in the teleconferencing and distance learning arena, setting up one of the first distance learning classrooms at Fairleigh. He has been asked to speak at numerous conferences on New Media and Internet applications.
After five years in Academia, Bergmann returned to Los Angeles and founded Perfect Timing Media, a television development and production company focusing primarily on family fare programming. Their first project, Race to Space, a family oriented feature film starring James Wood and Anna Beth Gish was released world-wide by Lions Gate Films in the Spring of 2002. The Over the Hill Gang, an Australian based production and development company was also set up in Sydney. That company has taken over responsibility for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, which Bergmann has shepherded into a third year of production. In addition, several projects are in development with CBS, USA Cable, Comedy Central,VH1, and ABC.
Perfect Timing has also taken an equity position in Century Media, a world-wide media buying and marketing firm based in Santa Monica California. This enables the company to cross market their product in a variety of media. Utilizing this concept, the company works with several very creative individuals in the Music industry to maximize the potential of projects in diverse entertainment platforms.
From the Summer of 2004 until Summer of 2006 Bergmann served as CEO and COB of YP Corp. a publicly traded Internet Advertising Company. . Upon his return to the world of Entertainment Bergmann founded Digital Acquisitions Corp. with his long time friends Toby Moore & Irv Holender. This Company's mandate is to acquire content for distribution through conventional channels as well as exploiting the avenues of e-commerce. DAC is developing a number of programs suitable for the ever-growing international television, music and new media markets. The company has established relationships with the major studios and major distribution companies as well as record labels.
