Power’s Bodle

October
2007

By Anna
Carugati

Power is
a leading European independent producer and distri­butor of high-quality, high-budget
mini-series and TV movies. It is renowned for lavish productions with
international casts, such as Henry VIII, which won an International Emmy award; Archangel, based on Robert Harris’s
best-selling novel; Casanova; and The Virgin Queen. Its recent action-disaster
feature Flood was optioned, developed and produced entirely by Power, which
raised the $30-million budget without the aid of a sale to a U.S. broadcaster.
Power also has a very successful business selling TV-movie thrillers to
broadcasters around the world. Chairman and CEO Justin Bodle offers TV
Europe his view
of the evolving television business.

TV EUROPE: As terrestrial broadcasters in major markets are losing
viewers to satellite and cable channels and to new media, is event television
taking on a more important role because of its ability to attract a large
audience?

BODLE: Terrestrial broadcasters are looking at what defines them
as a network and differentiates them from satellite and cable and the other
free-television networks in their market. They are concentrating on creating
their own personalities, and that is bringing the audiences back. Networks in
the U.S. took a beating, but they then concentrated hard on the dramas and
comedies and big-event programming to create that clear definition in the
audience’s mind [that distinguishes] them from cable and satellite and from the
competition. We’re starting to see that happening in Europe. Big-event
television is an appointment to view and engages the audience. Big events are
very expensive but they do an extraordinary job.

TV EUROPE: Are advertisers getting more
involved with production?

BODLE: There are legal changes about product placement coming through in the
European Union’s “Television Without Frontiers” directive. We as producers will
not allow advertisers to impact on our editorial content, and that is very
unlikely ever to change, because as producers you cannot have any kind of
[negative] impact on your programming or you will end up losing the audience.
But we can see there is a definitive role for advertisers within the editorial
structure that will allow them a considerable efficiency advantage that has
been completely underutilized. In order to take sponsorship and advertiser
involvement in programming beyond the commercial break, advertisers have got to
look beyond just television. They’ve got to look at integrating what they do
with a program on television, on the Internet, and on different levels, so that
they can create an overall efficiency and can deliver on the brand associations
that they are creating behind that sponsorship. If they are just looking to do
it only on screen, it’s a massive under-use of the opportunity.

At the
moment, advertisers are inefficient, and a number of them bury their heads in
the sand and say, “We’ll pare off an amount of the budget to go onto the
Internet,” and that budget tends to come from television. But if they spread
their message across television and across the Internet and have them properly
linked, then they’ll actually see much more the efficiencies coming out of
television.

TV EUROPE: In what ways are you looking to grow the company?

BODLE: We are on a very high growth strategy at the moment, and we are
looking at supporting that growth with potential acquisitions and potential
strategic relationships around the world, particularly in the U.S. and
English-speaking territories, both in production and in distribution.

TV EUROPE: You’ve been in the television business for many years.
How have you seen it evolve?

BODLE: This is a very challenging and exciting time for a number of
different reasons. First of all, we are going through a media revolution. We’ve
got another evolution that is also starting, which is the advent of
private-equity funds [in the film and television business]. That’s going to
have a very big impact on what happens for the next few years.

Private
equity is now a very serious part of the independent film business that is
dwarfing almost every other sector outside the Hollywood studios. We’re seeing
the start of that in television. Substantial private-equity players are
[investing in television companies], and when they start making some very big
footholds in the market we will see a considerable change in the independent
television sector as well. That will have a significant impact on the way the
business is done and on some of the strategy that is put into play by the indie
sector going forward, [because private equity will look for] consolidation,
high rate of returns and a much more structured, competitive edge to the studio
system.

This is
an exciting time, and what I like about my job is coming up with solutions that
drive us forward. What excites me is having very big ideas about very big
programming and then delivering on those ideas without compromising either the
financing or the creativity of those ideas. That’s what put the company into
the position that it is in now, and it is paying dividends for us and will
continue going forward. That’s my biggest challenge and that’s what I enjoy
most.