Disney EMEA Commissioning & Licensing Highlighted at MIPCOM

At the Producers Hub at MIPCOM today, The Walt Disney Company’s Diego Londono and Paolo Agostinelli discussed the Disney+ commissioning strategy in Europe, co-productions and windowing innovation in conversation with World Screen’s Mansha Daswani.

Disney+ has been commissioning across Europe, with 73 commissions to date over eight markets. Londono, executive VP of media networks and content for EMEA, noted that for Disney+’s first year in Europe, the focus was on its strong slate of U.S. content, which drove its first round of growth.

“What we’re looking to do on the local side is complement that general entertainment offering… content for adults,” Londono said. “One of the big challenges and opportunities we have is getting people to understand that part of the Disney-branded service is more than just kids’ and family content. There is amazing general entertainment.”

Key markets for that approach have been France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the U.K. and Turkey, “where we have teams on the ground taking pitches.” There have also been commissions out of markets like Spain, the Netherlands and Poland.

The focus is “local for local,” Londono continued. “We’re not doing broad multi-market English-language pieces. We’re commissioning across scripted and unscripted. On the scripted side, we try not to be overly prescriptive, but we all know the genres that work: crime, action-adventure, general dramas, soaps, comedies on a limited space. We’re across the gamut.”

Londono highlighted some of the platform’s key recent and upcoming releases: Rivals, out of the U.K., based on the book IP, which rolled out last week; This is Not Hollywood, based on one of Italy’s most notable true-crime tales; and A Thousand Blows, from Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight and set in 1800s London, which arrives in 2025.

The conversation then shifted to the role co-productions and other funding models play in Disney+’s approach to original commissions. “We’re definitely open to different models,” Londono noted. “In our early days, there was a lot of focus on full commissions, but as things have evolved, we’re much more flexible in terms of the types of things we do and working with partners.”

This includes Whiskey on the Rocks, a co-production with SVT in Sweden, which has the first window. “We come four months after in Sweden, but in the rest of the world, we’re in first position. That is something we’lll look to do more of,” Londono said. In France, meanwhile, Disney+ is working with TF1 on the French adaptation of BBC Studios’ Ghosts. “We have taken a first position in that, with a second window on TF1. We’re having conversations with broadcasters about different models to bring new content to the platform.”

Agostinelli, senior VP of affiliate and content distribution for EMEA, then joined the conversation to talk about the co-pro angle from his licensing vantage point. “We can leverage our relationships with our clients and the knowledge of our clients to identify needs and projects that could be of interest. And we can maximize the value and make sure both partners can benefit.”

Agostinelli also reflected on Disney opening up its coffers again more widely as its DTC strategy has matured. “Our ultimate aim and objective is to reach out to as many fans as possible. We’ve been doing this for decades. Five years ago, when we launched our DTC proposition, it was about managing the shift in both demand and supply with changing behaviors and technology, making it possible to reach out to consumers in a much more effective way. So, we added to our distribution screens direct to consumers. And you can think about it; it only made sense when we launched direct-to-consumer to protect this new screen by holding a good chunk of content almost exclusively to Disney+. Things have changed. Direct-to-consumer is in a different stage of its life cycle. The service is well established in more than 150 million homes across the world, which is a testament we did the right thing at the moment. There was a need to rebalance our distribution strategy, which is something we had planned from the very beginning. We want to maximize reach, and we believe in windowing between direct-to-consumer and third parties like broadcasters. Not only do we maximize reach, we have an opportunity to generate synergies and create further value. We can have an exclusive window on Disney+ and then license to third parties.”

He mentioned as an example Extraordinary from the U.K., which was licensed to ITV2 and ITVX just ahead of the season two drop on Disney+. “It raised the profile of season one and engaged fans in season two. We’ve done more than 20 such deals in the last few months.”

Londono added that Disney+ is also acquiring content locally, “so we have a lot of conversations with free-to-air broadcasters in various markets to license content in a second window. It increases the local content on our platform, and increases funding for free-to-air players at a difficult time.”

When asked about the importance of known IP when commissioning today, Londono said, “It’s not essential, but you need to understand the elements that will allow you to cut through. Known IP helps. Rivals has a huge fan base in the U.K. This is Not Hollywood is based on [a true story], but A Thousand Blows is an original story from a fantastic creator. And it’s a genre we know has had success. So it’s not essential, but we do love it.”

The commissioning team is looking at formats, including big entertainment brands like Got Talent.

“Innovation is key,” Agostinelli said as the session wrapped. “Ultimately, we want to maximize value for consumers. Our objective is to create value with our stories for as many people as we can.”