Lou Pearlman - Entertainment Industry Career

Entertainment Industry Career

Pearlman became fascinated with the success of the New Kids on the Block, who had made hundreds of millions of dollars in record, tour and merchandise sales. He started Trans Continental Records with the intent of mimicking their boy-band business model. The label's first band, the Backstreet Boys, consisted of five unknown performers selected by Lou in a $3 million talent search. Management duties were assigned to a former New Kids on the Block manager, Johnny Wright, and his wife Donna. The Backstreet Boys went on to become the best-selling boy band of all time with 130 million record sales under their belt, hitting gold, platinum, and diamond in 45 different countries. Pearlman and the Wrights then repeated this formula almost exactly with the band *NSync, which sold over 55 million records globally.

With these two major successes under his belt, Pearlman had become a music mogul. Other boy bands managed by Pearlman were O-Town (created during the ABC–MTV reality TV series Making the Band), LFO, Take 5, Natural, youthful rock musician Jim DeBerry, and US5, as well as the girl group Innosense, together with Lynn Harless. Other artists on the Trans Continental label included Aaron Carter, Jordan Knight, Smilez & Southstar and C-Note. Pearlman also owned a large entertainment complex in Orlando, including a recording studio he called Trans Continental Studios, and a dance studio by Disney World named "O-Town".

Lou Pearlman also was an officer at TAG Entertainment.The independent film company TAG Entertainment produced some low budget yet profitable movies and DVDs. Pearlman presented himself as working to create an ethical and wholesome New Wave of Hollywood film making, along with others who actually worked on the movie projects for much less than what they would normally charge.