Making It

Leading producers weigh in about how they are navigating this era of peak TV.

At the end of February, just before Kew Media Group’s lenders called in their debts, producer Jamie Brown announced that he was buying back his Frantic Films venture from the company, personally financing the deal. The Canadian outfit had been one of six key acquisitions that served as the foundation of Kew Media Group in 2017. Once Kew’s financial troubles were revealed at the end of 2019, many producers in the group quickly moved to land on their feet before the company collapsed. Two Rivers Media secured a deal to buy out Kew Media’s stake; Kew had been one of the early backers of the Scottish indie. Jeff Collins exited the company he founded—Collins Avenue Entertainment, which was subsequently sold to Asylum Entertainment Group’s The Content Group—and set up a new outfit with Sky Studios. Robert Cohen bought back Media Headquarters and Datsit acquired BGM and Sienna Films. Kew’s other companies, including TCB Media Rights, continue to operate while new owners are sought. (Meanwhile, Kew Media Distribution has ceased all operations.)

The fall of Kew Media Group is a cautionary tale for producers looking to become part of bigger groups in the pursuit of scale (and fewer sleepless nights worrying about cash flow and keeping the lights on). But it is also one of the few calamities from the rapid-fire M&A landscape over the last few years. The federations—cross-border companies consisting of a mix of production companies alongside a strong distribution arm—continue to get bigger (with the Banijay and Endemol Shine Group combination set to be the biggest once that transaction closes). IP is a valuable commodity these days, and for the most part, there has never been a better time to be a producer.

Take the U.K., where the independent sector is worth about £3 billion a year, according to John McVay, chief executive of Pact, which represents the interest of producers. That’s up from about £600 million two decades ago.

“The U.K. is still one of the most competitive markets in the world, despite more investments coming from cabsats and streamers and so on,” McVay reports. “Domestic broadcasting is still the primary market for our producers. Every slot counts, every minute counts. We’re in a battle for quality, a battle for innovation and a battle for eyeballs, whether that’s free-to-air commercial or pay or the BBC. In that sense, it’s never been tougher. But at the same time, that’s made us very competitive.”

Key to the health of the sector, McVay explains, is the model that has allowed U.K. producers to retain the IP rights to their commissions. “We can make shows domestically and own and control the copyright, under license with those broadcasters, or we can go and work for global streaming platforms, where we can get our repo margin.”
While being a producer can certainly be lucrative today, navigating a fast-changing landscape on your own is not easy.

“The thing about being a one-person start-up at the moment is, unless you’ve found a way to tacitly sell something and then start a new firm with that project, even with great talent, it is going to take two or three years to get on your feet,” says Chris Aird, the head of drama at Harry and Jack Williams’ Two Brothers Pictures, which is part of All3Media. “Everyone I talk to right now who is attempting to do that is finding it tougher than they thought they might.”

For Delbert Shoopman, Bear Grylls’ longtime producing partner, securing the backing of a bigger group was crucial for the creation of The Natural Studios, a new non-scripted company that rolled out as a joint venture with Banijay Group last fall.

“Bear and I had a good amount of success in the outdoor adventure area,” says Shoopman, co-CEO of The Natural Studios. “All the OTT platforms and networks were buying IP. We went out [to find] a group that could support our productions and had global scale and strong distribution capabilities. Banijay won. We’re happy to be part of that family.”

Indeed, Shoopman and Grylls quickly went to work reaching out to sister companies within the group, starting with Mumbai-based Banijay Asia, which is led by Deepak Dhar. A special episode of Into the Wild with Bear Grylls recently premiered on Discovery India, featuring the titular adventurer as he explored the Bandipur Tiger Reserve with local superstar Rajinikanth. “What we’re doing in India and some other territories is using Bear’s global footprint and the need for territory-specific programming to penetrate markets,” says Shoopman. “There’s a huge appetite in India for outdoor adventure and specifically Bear, and Deepak has been amazingly supportive.”

Shoopman and Grylls then soon heard from other companies in the Banijay group. “We’ve been working with RDF and IWC in the U.K., the team out of Australia, and we’ve been working closely with Bunim/Murray and Banijay North America.”

LONG FORM
Incendo had spent almost two decades operating as a Canadian independent, producing and financing a steady supply of TV movies. In the last few years, Incendo has moved into the series space with international co-pros like Versailles. Next up is Ice with Further South Productions and Lionsgate. As its series ambitions grew, Incendo knew that an alliance with a bigger group would make sense for its business going forward.

“The risk of these high-end international productions is, as you can imagine, very high for an independent company,” says COO Jean-Philippe Normandeau.

Last year, Incendo was bought out by French-language broadcaster TVA Group. “The marriage between the two companies has been great for us up to now,” says Normandeau. “They are letting us keep our independence, but we’re trying to see how we can work together, now that our administrative, HR and financing [operations are] all integrated. We want to see how we can either develop projects together or take some of the projects they buy from the French side and see what we can do with them internationally. Pretty much everything is on the table.”

BOOM TIME
Alejandro Rincon’s Boomdog had also been going it alone for many years before merging with Endemol Shine North America. Rincon, CEO of Endemol Shine Boomdog, says that in the two years since the merger, “We have grown in a lot of aspects. We doubled the revenues each year. We had a fantastic year last year. We expect this year to be even better. We are not a separate company; we work as one company. That gives us a big advantage in our markets.”

Endemol Shine Boomdog is riding the wave of increased interest in Spanish-language scripted with projects such as Súbete a Mi Moto, licensed to Amazon, and Nicky Jam: El Ganador, which was a hit for Netflix in LatAm and Telemundo in the U.S.

This is a space that the recently formed The Immigrant is also targeting. The company was set up by Camila Jiménez-Villa, previously of Story House Productions at Univision, and Silvana Aguirre, showrunner of El Chapo, just over a year ago as “a Latinx premium content development and production studio,” says Jiménez-Villa, CEO at The Immigrant. “We do content in English and Spanish. Having said that, about 80 percent of our slate is in Spanish because our areas of focus are Mexico, Colombia and Spain. We are an American company based out of Los Angeles, and there is a huge opportunity here in the U.S. to talk to the multicultural audience.”

Jiménez-Villa says that she and Aguirre were able to scale the company up quickly, “so we could choose if we needed a partner or not.” The company elected to align with Fremantle, which picked up a minority stake in The Immigrant, marking its first investment in the Latinx market.

“Fremantle was extremely strategic for us,” Jiménez-Villa says. “It was a long-term decision to associate and partner with an established company that has a track record of distributing television worldwide and supporting creators. The way they think about story, about filmmakers and writers, is very similar to the way we do. They are very creator-centric. They’ve proved that with fantastic production companies all around the world. And strategically, it’s great to be lean, to be fast and to focus on quality, as we do, but at the same time, it’s fantastic to be able to have the support of a distribution team like Jens Richter’s at Fremantle. That gives you opportunities and options when you’re setting up shows, so you have a little bit more creative control and more control of the IP you’re developing.”

It also gives the team at The Immigrant a pool of creatives to potentially partner with—for example, a new project is in the works with Fremantle-owned Wildside.

BRON Ventures is also a partner in The Immigrant, Jiménez-Villa adds. “It’s been a pleasure to work at a start-up, driven by folks who are incredibly passionate about content, with the backing of companies like Fremantle and BRON. It’s given us the luxury of thinking and operating as a small company, but with the weight and opportunities linked to a large one.”

INDEPENDENT SPIRIT
There is, however, also a path for companies to remain as pure-play independents today. “I don’t think going it alone is a bad thing,” says McVay at Pact, which provides an array of resources to producers, including pavilions at markets like NATPE and MIPCOM; events such as Content Without Borders, which brings factual commissioners from Europe together with British producers; and the recently launched Pact Growth Accelerator, which McVay describes as “a wiki for producers. So if you’re a start-up business, [there is information on] how you raise money and how you manage a business better. We have webinars from 180 buyers around the world. We have information about tax credits, regulations, co-productions.”

McVay adds that within Pact membership, mid-ranking companies—those with revenues of above £10 million—have grown “pretty substantially and most of those aren’t part of groups. Nearly all the growth has come from them securing work from platforms or channels in America.”

Tony Jordan’s Red Planet Pictures has opted to remain unaffiliated with a larger company. “It allows us to be light on our feet, to do what we want,” says Alex Jones, joint managing director at the company alongside Belinda Campbell. “That involves taking risks as well. We’re fortunate in the fact that we have such a successful show in Death in Paradise. That does give us the security to fund and finance our own development. That has enabled us to keep our independence for as long as we have. We’re not scrabbling around trying to find money to spend on development. We have a budget set aside for development, but if we want to spend more or try different things, then we have the freedom to do that. It allows us to partner with anyone we want to. We have the flexibility to structure things in the best way for that production.”

Red Planet Pictures does not have an exclusive distribution partner but has worked extensively with BBC Studios, including on Death in Paradise and Sanditon. “If we need to partner with a producer or broadcaster that requires us to use a certain distributor, or take certain territories off the table, then we’re able to do that,” Jones says. “That’s one of the upsides of being completely independent. It also keeps everyone in top form when they’re trying to get your business!”

WHERE’S THE MONEY?
Securing a distribution partner early is, of course, a prerequisite in the scripted business today—to deficit-finance, do presales or broker co-production deals.

“We have direct relationships with a lot of the U.S. platforms and broadcasters, as well as others around the world, but we have this key relationship with all3media [international] that works so well for us,” says Aird at Two Brothers. “They are so supportive of everything we do. They will come in and presell to international broadcasters or deficit-finance. Every project is different, and the wheels turn at different speeds. What’s so wonderful about having All3Media behind us is, they will always provide that support, which allows us to get on with actually making the show.”

At Two Brothers, the model generally starts with landing a U.K. first-window broadcaster and combining that with a U.S. platform or broadcaster, “together with maybe a local financier abroad and then looking at all the tax-break options, incentives, to shoot in various places around the world,” Aird says. “We’ve seen rapid inflation in the cost of making high-end television drama. You need that financing package in place, all of it, to make it happen. The inflation in costs has caught up with inflation in budgets. Some time ago, before it was such a global marketplace, £1 million per hour would have been masses of money to make a show. Now £1.4 million, £1.5 million often doesn’t feel like quite enough.”

Jones at Red Planet says that BBC Studios’ early involvement in Sanditon was critical to securing the financing package on that show. “At a very early stage, you can broadly identify what level of budget you’re looking at, depending on whether it’s period, casting aspirations, the setting, level of visual effects, etc. For something like Sanditon, we knew from the outset that ITV wasn’t going to be able to fully fund that budget. We worked with BBC Studios and identified PBS Masterpiece as a potential co-production partner. We took it out to market with BBC Studios and ultimately partnered with Masterpiece, and along with the ITV license fee and the distribution advance, we made the show.”

The entire financing process, Jones adds, is not getting any easier as costs rise. “The cost of production is creeping up as the demand for crew, facilities, studio space, etc., increase. Even if you’re making something primarily for a domestic market, the production values still have to hold up against all the other international dramas out there. I’m particularly proud of what we achieved on Sanditon. We made that for a good budget, but it wasn’t up in the £3 million to £4 million per episode level. At Red Planet Pictures, we work hard to ensure that the money goes on the screen, by planning and being smart.”

IN DEVELOPMENT
Thriving as a producer today also requires having a strategic approach to development, so that you’re not overextending yourself but also giving yourself as many options as possible to land a commission.

“We pick and choose our projects very specifically,” says Shoopman at The Natural Studios. “If it’s a Bear-fronted show, we’ve done a really good job at making sure he’s not overexposed. Running Wild is our marquee show, it’s on Nat Geo. When we did the deal with Netflix, we wanted to make sure it wasn’t just, Here’s Bear again, surviving! When we pitched to Netflix, we had read an article that they were getting into interactive programming. Bear wants to empower youth; let’s face it, a lot of kids aren’t getting outdoors anymore, so how do we bring the outdoors in? We now have an interactive show. We break it down as, Where can we go and what can we do that is unique to that platform? We teamed up with Amazon Prime Video to do World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji. That’s an endurance race for adventurers and explorers. We’re not going to do that with Discovery or Nat Geo. We keep walls up of where we can do something and what we can do. What can we provide to X network that is natural to us, unique to that platform, isn’t overexposing us, and that we can put our whole heart into? The last thing we want to do is be over-exposed or look like we’re just out there as a money grab because we’re leveraging such a great brand.”

QUALITY VS. QUANTITY
Jiménez-Villa at The Immigrant stresses that it’s not about volume: “It’s about quality and devoting time to each project and each creator. Having said that, even if you want to have a low volume produced every year, you need to have more things in development at any point in time. We split the work not only geographically, but by passion.”

The development team at Red Planet is structured around a few key areas, including “factually inspired ideas—that’s more about using factual IP, real-life crimes or real-life events to inspire drama,” Jones explains. “We have a literary acquisitions exec who is out there scouting for books for us, getting in there with publishers and trying to spot those hits before they become hits. And then we have different parts of the team focused on new and upcoming writers. And then just looking at good ideas, chatting to writers, working with more established writing talent, and trying to make sure we have each area covered.”

A show’s potential home is always considered early on, Jones adds. “It’s often quite clear whether a project is more aligned to an SVOD audience or whether it could sit on one of the U.K. terrestrials. There are some shows that you know you could take to multiple broadcasters or platforms. Some ideas you know may only have one potential home. That’s just part of our decision-making process. Things are changing so much, almost weekly. You have to have a constant dialogue with commissioners and keep an eye on what they want.”

Two Brothers’ Aird agrees, adding, “It’s our job to match up great ideas and writers with a broadcaster. I hate the scattergun approach to development. One has to be really targeted. It’s about people bringing material that is going to fit on whatever platform or channel you’re working for. That first relationship is key.”

As for crafting a development slate, Aird stresses the crucial role played by the Williams brothers. “We punch above our weight in terms of the number of staff versus the number of commissions we make! Most of that has to do with having these two great showrunners in the middle of the company. I think we have a great cross-section of tastes. At one end, there’s our passion for exciting, character-led thrillers, of the kind Jack and Harry write, so Liar, The Missing, The Widow, Baptiste, and shows like Cheat by Gaby Hull fit that mold. And at the other end is this encouragement of younger, often female writers—[talents like] Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Daisy Haggard, as well as other writers like Kelly Jones and Catherine Moulton—who are creating ideas that are very current and feel fresh and zeitgeisty.”

Of course, it’s not just about finding new talent; it’s about how you foster and develop it. “There’s something about Jack and Harry’s presence in the heart of the company that maybe allows commissioners to take risks on newer voices because they know Jack and Harry are there to help guide them,” observes Aird.

Indeed, the race to align with name talents like the Williams brothers is driving the rapid-fire consolidation in the content sector. For those companies investing in production houses, the key to success going forward will lie in finding ways to retain that talent for the long term. Because if you don’t, they’ll start something new—likely with someone else.

The interviews for this report were conducted prior to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Media companies are currently shifting their strategies in the wake of production postponements and economic trends.