A major player in the Reality TV business, ICM agent Steve Wohl, has left that tenpercentery to head up the Reality TV division at Paradigm bringing with him America's Next Top Model Ken Mok and other clients. 
Wohl decided to jump after he went from head of ICM's Reality TV department, to co-head with Greg Lipstone, and then to working for Lipstone, because of personnel moves made by prez Chris Silbermann. Lipstone recently got another ICM promotion -- to sole head of the newly named International Television and Media division.
I already reported that, back in March, Lori Sale exited ICM's head of global branded entertainment to head up that new division at Paradigm. 
Since then, 5 junior agents in her ICM department have moved to Paradigm: Randy Smith, Kathlene Trihn, Sam Olsteen, Sean Barth and Jessica Love. But ICM retained the department's senior agents.
Then there's Jenny Fritz, the ICM motion picture lit agent who went to Paradigm a few months ago.
Paradigm's most recent ICM hire is more fall-out from last year's ICM-Ed Limato battle when the tenpercentery dumped all over several Limato loyalists. So fired ICM talent agent and one-time Limato assistant, Jim Osborne, went to Paradigm. Now Osborne just hired a young guy that ICM axed because he, too, was a Limato accolyte: Matt Eskander, who'll be a covering agent in the Paradigm talent department. Eskander spent several years as an agent under Limato's and Osborne's tutelage at ICM. He comes to Paradigm from Industry Entertainment where he worked as a manager for the past year.
Since I'm on the subject of ICM, I reported some weeks ago that clients of former ICM agent and now manager Brian Sher (his company is called Category 5) would be leaving that tenpercentery. The latest are Edwin Cannistraci and Frederick Seton, the writers of Pierre Pierre which has Jim Carrey attached and Jason Reitman directing. The duo just fired ICM and have parked themselves with Sher indefinitely.
Oooh, this could get ugly.
I’m having visions of Agent-style gang wars completely ruining people’s business lunches under barrages of business cards and flying cell-phones, while reports of West Side Story style briefcase fights flood 911 operators from Beverly Hills to Malibu.
There’s only one solution for this feud.
THUNDERDOME!
Two senior partners enter. One senior partner leaves.
Sorry, I’m just feeling a wee tad silly right now.
Comment by Furious D — May 9, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
Is ICM’s tv dept still benefiting from the Broder merger?
Comment by A. — May 9, 2008 @ 7:59 pm
Paradigm’s business model is a total joke. Sam Gores is a nice guy, and they have a lot of really nice people working for them, but the endgame is a lot of incompetence at the top bottlenecking any good work that could be getting done. I hear about it all the time and experienced it first hand.
This is what happens when you take twelve different agency cultures and merge them instead of trying to build from the ground up…They fired new media people after failing to support them at that. They bring on WMA agents who feel underserviced when they arrive and don’t get the treatment (i.e. sycophantics) they “deserve” and expect those guys to do well at making money for them thereafter? They kill themselves from the inside and pride their entire business on a few decent packages. Big deal.
My friend - an agent there not in MP or TV - advised that I drop them for (pursuing agency). I did, and I’ve been so much happier since.
Comment by Anonymous — May 9, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
Nikki- come on now, we all know that Paradigm is picking up anything they can get. The agents they have acquired are really not anything to phone home about. Sam Gores is desperate. He has tried to buy or merge with anyone that would listen. Its a joke. ICM, however, has its own prolems. They really dont have a movie department anymore. Everyone has left. The TV business is ok but they still are far behind CAA UTA Endeavor and WMA. They clearly have to do something quickly about building their business.
Comment by mailman — May 10, 2008 @ 7:17 am