As senior vice-president and managing director of Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) Asia, Todd Miller spends more time in a suit these days than he does indulging his passion for adventure travelling and extreme sports.
Since joining SPTI 11 years ago in the US, Miller has been busy overseeing, among other projects, the continued global growth of AXN -- now passing 23 million homes -- while leading the rollout of SPTI's Animax channel. Most recently, Miller has been a key player behind the soon-to-launch Indonesian sitcom, The Neny, an adaptation of the popular US show, The Nanny. When it launches, it will be the first scripted show to be adapted locally in Asia.
Since joining SPTI 11 years ago in the US, Miller has been busy overseeing, among other projects, the continued global growth of AXN -- now passing 23 million homes -- while leading the rollout of SPTI's Animax channel. Most recently, Miller has been a key player behind the soon-to-launch Indonesian sitcom, The Neny, an adaptation of the popular US show, The Nanny. When it launches, it will be the first scripted show to be adapted locally in Asia.
Tasked with looking after the company's broadcasting, production, syndication and business development business in Asia, Miller has been presented with many challenges, which have ranged from obtaining corporate and financial approval for new initiatives to overcoming the boundaries presented by cultural differences.
"The challenges, the issues, the opportunities, the headaches in each of those 20 countries are varied," reflects Miller. "The diversity of issues that we deal with on a daily and hourly basis, it's just plain interesting."
Driven by a penchant for excitement and new experiences, Miller took up extreme sports, including mountain biking and wakeboarding, which, over the years, have ended up taking a backseat to his first love: adventure travelling. Bred from a family of travel junkies -- which, incidentally, still gathers annually for a holiday in different countries -- he excitedly points out that by January, he will have travelled to more than 100 nations.
His first brush with Asia came straight out of college, when he embarked on an eight-month backpacking trip, which turned into a three-year move. In between teaching English, he trekked to Mount Everest base camp and forged a path through much of Indochina, an experience that only partially satisfied his appetite for the unknown. "I explored Indochina well before Lonely Planet ever discovered the region, and was just so enamoured with Asia I had no interest in going home and working," he says. "I sort of found my own path and that was a way for me to explore my curiosity in Asia."
The son of a newspaper publisher in the US, Miller was "born with ink on (his) hands", a trait which prompted him to start his first publication while still in the third grade, called The Third Grade Gazette. But despite his upbringing in a print environment, Miller moved into television as an adsales executive, most notably with the then-new Star TV, a switch that was perhaps both natural and inevitable.
"I was exposed to the media business at the youngest age," he notes. "I am fascinated with television, and I am an avid consumer of TV entertainment."
Miller eventually returned to the US to begin an MBA at Columbia University, a move he describes as part of the overall plan and "one of the best decisions I have ever made". Picked up by SPTI for a financial analyst position in Los Angeles soon after, it wasn't long before the lure of Asia again grew too strong, prompting Miller to engineer a transfer to the region: "For me, it's thrilling to be able to work in an industry for which I have such interest and passion."
Asked to look to the future, Miller laughs, saying it is difficult enough trying to determine where he'll be in two weeks' time. But he insists he does want to be in Asia, he does want to be in television, and he wants to be having fun:"If it's not fun, why do it?"
