Elizabeth Guider Reports: SPT’s Independent Path

In the wake of the latest wave of consolidation sweeping over Hollywood, Sony Pictures Television (SPT) has clung to its independent bonafides—and, with ballast from its latest quartet of broadcast pickups, has managed to swim against the tide.

That tide means that a whopping 80 percent to 90 percent of the prime-time schedule on any of the five U.S. broadcast networks is locked up by series from each’s sibling production studio. (Because of its Japanese ownership, Sony by law cannot own a U.S. free-to-air network and hence must operate as an outside, unaligned supplier of programming.)

By all accounts, the company routinely drives a hard bargain in negotiating to get on the broadcast schedules, though often it does have to split rights with the network in question.

Still, Sony’s reputation as a company that zigs while others zag is solid.

So, during the Screenings, while its vertically integrated fellow studios hosted daily viewing sessions of pilot after pilot, Sony took a different tack with its customers. Instead of making the buyers trek to its Culver City lot to screen pilots, the team decided to host its own International Upfronts event, on Tuesday evening at the Ebell Theater, at which clips were shown of the variety of shows on offer from the studio.

“Doing it that way allowed us to present the range and diversity of what we have to license and to showcase some of our stars, everyone from Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson to our producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller,” said Keith LeGoy, president of worldwide distribution at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

“Further,” LeGoy continued, “it shows we recognized how busy the buyers were, and the fact that they need in any case to involve various parts of their company back home in making complex buying decisions.” SPT executives will do follow-up screening showcases in various European locales over the next couple of months.

LeGoy, who was recently promoted to oversee home entertainment and worldwide networks in addition to program distribution, went on to talk about the auspices of the two dramas and two sitcoms that were picked up to series—the hours Lincoln (for NBC domestically) and For Life (for ABC) and the half-hours Indebted (for NBC) and United We Fall (for ABC)—as well as the equally upbeat news that all of its current series were renewed by the networks.

“One of the first things buyers ask when they come in to hear a seller’s sales pitch is ‘what’s your track record?’ and in our case it’s stellar,” LeGoy pointed out. (The Blacklist, The Good Doctor, The Goldbergs and Schooled are among SPT’s returning scripted shows.)

As for reactions to the new contenders for fall, LeGoy told World Screen that buyers “responded very strongly.”

About the drama For Life, for example, he suggested that as a crime procedural it goes a step beyond in that viewers get to root for an underdog protagonist. (In this case, a wrongly convicted prisoner, played by Nicholas Pinnock, takes it upon himself to become a lawyer behind bars and assist his fellow inmates.)

Asked how his division was reacting to the moves by other major players to launch streaming services and thereby hold rights back from their traditional broadcast clients, LeGoy put the accent on his company’s belief that the need by many outlets for good content will only become greater as a result.

“The thing is, we know who we are—we’re proudly independent—and we want to tell great stories, giving the creators of our content the freedom to do so.” (In addition to Lord/Miller, Sony has current deals with producers including Vince Gilligan, Graham Yost, Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon and David Shore; it recently lost another, Adam Goldberg, to Disney, where his two sitcoms air on ABC.)

Among other changes in the biz, having a broadcast deal in the States before production can begin is not absolutely essential anymore, LeGoy pointed out. The company is currently shooting an eight-part drama miniseries called Alex Rider, a coming-of-age story about a boy who becomes a reluctant super spy for MI6. Andreas Prochaska (of Das Boot fame) directs and Guy Burt wrote the script.

“We believe in the project and are investing in it ourselves. There are so many new ways of partnering with people. As a pure major independent, with infrastructure and people on the ground around the world, we at SPT can unequivocally strike deals whenever appropriate,” he explained.

Visit WorldScreen.com’s Fall Season Grid for all the details on the new and returning shows on the U.S. broadcast networks, and a listing of pickups by studio.