DoRo Productions

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DoRo Produktion Ges.mbH aka DoRo Productions is a film company based in Vienna, Austria. DoRo was named after the surnames of founders Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher.

[edit] History

Dolezal and Rossacher, also known as "Torpedo Twins", first started producing television series for Austrian and German stations ORF, ARD and ZDF. Dolezal and Rossacher gained international acclaim and won several awards for their music videos for artists such as Queen, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Falco and Frank Zappa, as well as several German and Austrian acts such as Trio, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, and Herbert Grönemeyer.

Furthermore, DoRo produced numerous acclaimed documentaries, mostly on musicians, bands and similarly music-related topics.

In late 1999 the two company founders decided that they wanted their company to go public and sell company shares through an IPO (Initial Public Offering). Investors were brought in to finance an expansion, in which the company would buy other small companies working in the same or a similar field.

DoRo Productions spawned numerous subsidiaries in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Los Angeles, London and Munich. German MTV competitor VIVA was partly founded and conceived by DoRo. DoRo diversified its product range from TV commercials, to internet content production to video post production.

Former DoRo executive Dietmar Glodde as well as personal assistants of that time report that around that time one of the two founders, Rudi Dolezal, after he had separated from his longstanding partner Eva Tauchen, fell back into pathological drug abuse which he had fought for years before. Both Rossacher and Dolezal were living a life style (with a huge crowd of personal 24h- assistants, personal drivers, etc.) that reminded of CEOs of a company with a 1 billion EUR turnover. At that time DoRo Media annual revenue was a little less that 4 million EUR.

During 2002 some embarrassing management missteps by the founders and subsequently disappointing business results triggered a loss of investor's trust. In order to survive the company needed fresh capital. So the founders submitted new unrealistic business plans to investors that showed an increase in revenue and profit by several thousand percent bases on the production of a single show.

It did not take long for the truth to come out and so the planned IPO was canceled and led to the collapse and bankruptcy of the DoRo group of companies, the DoRo Media AG, in 2003. Many small businesses and suppliers payed a hefty price and never saw their bills payed. Hundreds of freelance producers, writers, directors were also never paid. There was wide outrage among creditors as Dolezal and Rossacher continued their posh life style.

Just hours after the bankruptcy of Doro Media AG in 2003, the first and forgotten DoRo subsidiary in Munich, DoRo Produktion GmbH, was reactivated after being inactive for many years and formed the basis for a restart of DoRo. This subsidiary was never incorporated in the now bankrupt DoRo Media AG. This way Dolezal and Rossacher were simply able to continue working as DoRo, without paying the unpaid bills of the past.

In the meantime, Dolezal and Rossacher have reopened a branch office in Vienna.

DoRo continues to produce very few concert films and music-related documentaries, but has completely ceased production of music videos. Hannes Rossacher has been quoted as saying: "The video clip business is done – both artistically and commercially. I just don't feel like doing a production promoting DJ Nerd featuring Miss Talentless".

Rossacher's comment points to the couple's current inability to create any music video business with any of their old clients or with new recording artists around the world. While other music video directors in Europe and the US continue to thrive and move from music video to TV commercial to Hollywood, Dolezal's and Rossacher's career seems to have come to a grinding halt.