Cathy Payne

November 2, 2009 World Screen

 

This article originally appeared in the MIPCOM ’09 issue.
 
Earlier this year, Endemol announced that it was acquiring the Southern Star Group from Fairfax Media. Endemol saw in the Australian production-and-distribution company an attractive library of 14,000 hours, consisting mainly of drama, children’s and family programming, as well as factual shows that would complement its own catalogue of entertainment formats. One of the main objectives of the deal was to build Endemol’s global distribution platform, and much of that job has been given to Cathy Payne, who has been with Southern Star nearly 21 years. She was named CEO of the integrated program-distribution business, Endemol Worldwide Distribution, and is responsible for exploiting all of the group’s finished content.
 
WS: Merging two libraries is a big job; what are the challenges you are facing?
PAYNE: Because Southern Star was quite a mature distributor with a lot of systems in place, whereas Endemol’s [finished] program distribution is quite young, it’s relatively easy because we are keeping the Southern Star systems and rolling the Endemol product into those.
No doubt it is a huge job, but really, the biggest challenge is letting everybody know it is going to be a huge job, and having realistic timetables and priorities.
In a general sense, I think it’s important in these situations, where we’ve had a number of people who have been displaced, to be as open as you can, to be honest and to communicate as much as you can—even if you over-communicate. For the past three years we’ve known that Southern Star was going to be sold. I always said that was the future, and I talked to my people about it in a lot of detail. But then when it happens, you often find people have a bit of a delayed reaction—I felt that myself.
 
WS: The two libraries complement each other, don’t they?
PAYNE: Yes, the Southern Star catalogue was largely built on scripted programming: drama, children’s and family, and some broad-audience factual. The Endemol library has more entertainment and reality shows in addition to a wider variety of factual. We are still focusing on broad audiences rather than niche because we are a large distributor, so when I assess a program, I am reviewing its ability to sell to 20 territories as opposed to only a handful.
 
WS: What are you hearing from buyers—what are they looking for?
PAYNE: In this market they are more selective and looking for reliability in programming—something that is long-running and has a proven track record. Networks are more likely to buy a rerun of a proven show, or buy an extra run, as opposed to something new—it’s often more cost-effective and reliable as they know what they are buying. Coming into the worst recession we’ve had in years, someone smiled on us, in that we had one of our strongest slates in recent times. While networks will always spend their big money on those big shows that define their network, I do think that well-priced acquisitions for the right product have come into play. There have been some networks that say, We haven’t got as much money available to produce, but we might have a little bit more to acquire. But without a doubt everyone is very selective and not buying anything more than what they need.
 
WS: With the breadth of your catalogue, you should be able to meet many different needs.
PAYNE: Endemol’s catalogue includes a number of fantastic brands, not the least being Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The series has the ability to play on broad-audience free-to-air television in addition to a variety of specialist pay-TV channels—for example, lifestyle, general entertainment or home. From the Southern Star side, we have a number of long-running dramas, the latest being Rush. This critical-response police drama has rated strongly in its second season, and we expect a third season renewal by MIPCOM. It has been successful in carving a nice niche for itself by delivering a slightly younger adult audience, which is well balanced between males and females.