The End of Napoli Management Group

Decades ago when FTVLive was just getting started, we reached out to two talent agencies to inquire if they would be interested in advertising on FTVLive?

The first was N.S. Bienstock and its head, Richard Leibner, and the second was Napoli Management Group and its leader, Mendes Napoli.

Both agreed to support FTVLive, and at the beginning, that support was important in keeping this website going.

Years ago, Bienstock was bought out by UTA and is now a much less personal company. UTA doesn’t seem to care about finding and nurturing talent as Bienstock did. They are more about just big names and poaching people when they can. At least, that’s how I see it.

Napoli was also bought out, first by Blue Equity and then the agency was sold to Paradigm Broadcasting.

While the Napoli name lived on for years, it has finally been replaced. Agent Josh Gropper posted about the name change.

I used to love answering the phone when Richard (RIP) or Mendes called to talk.  to love answering the phone when Richard (RIP) or Mendes called to talk. We would share war stories about the business, and it was always a call that would brighten my day.

Sadly, the agent game, just like the TV news business, is changing as well. There are now only a handful of agents out there that I think have the talent’s best interests in mind.

There are some good agents, but you need to look much harder to find them.

Just saying…