Entertainment One’s John Morayniss

The Entertainment One (eOne) Television catalogue is home to more than 4,500 hours of TV programming, including such high-profile dramas as The Walking Dead and its companion series Fear the Walking Dead and world-class factual content like David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef. And the company’s slate just keeps getting bigger, with plans to continue ramping up development and lining up more distribution partnerships. John Morayniss, the CEO of eOne Television, has led the company’s TV arm since its inception in 2008. He talks to World Screen about what’s next for the global indie.

WS: What has been driving the growth of eOne Television?
MORAYNISS: eOne has grown substantially over the last several years. A big part of that has to do with our focus on four key English-language hubs: the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. In all of those territories, we’re really focusing on connecting with talent, working with the best producers in those territories, and of course, forging strong relationships with the broadcast community. When you add that to our deep infrastructure in international distribution and sales, it allows us to really monetize in the best possible way all of the content that we’re developing and producing, as well as the content that we’re acquiring. In addition to that, we’re spending a lot of time developing relationships and investing in producers and production companies. That includes investing in the Mark Gordon Company; it includes acquiring the strongest factual companies in Canada, Paperny and Force Four; it includes investing in the digital-media company Secret Location; and securing a number of first-look deals with strong producers and writers, not just in the U.S. and Canada but also now in the U.K., in Australia and around the world.

WS: What has been the strategy for ramping up eOne’s television business in the U.S.?
MORAYNISS: We’re spending a lot more than we ever have on development. We’re taking bigger risks; we’re taking bigger shots. We’re working with top talent. We’re going after big book properties, underlying rights, life-story rights. We recognize that we really need to be in the big-event, big-statement production business and also in the niche, small, but very targeted business—always [working on projects of] high quality, but really staying away from the middle. As a result, we’re also looking at more overall deals, more first-look deals. We really want to surround ourselves with the best talent and the best producers, and we want to be that independent umbrella studio where we can nurture talent, support the creative process and bring shows that are developed by eOne to a worldwide audience.

WS: How are you approaching co-production opportunities in Europe and other international markets?
MORAYNISS: eOne is focused on partnerships. And in this day and age, that is really what co-productions are all about—it doesn’t mean what it used to, when you’d put together a Euro-pudding treaty co-production.
eOne is focusing on our local markets, particularly in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. We’re trying to leverage our bases there and our relationships with the best talent to put together global properties, global productions that appeal to a worldwide marketplace. We are focusing on partnerships with broadcasters in multiple territories, we’re focusing on partnerships with producers in multiple territories, and certainly the talent is coming from all over the world. So when you look at co-productions today, and particularly at what eOne is doing, you’re looking at how we’re leveraging our bases across the world to put together the best creative packages and sell those shows around the world.

WS: What are the key areas of the TV business that you are focusing on for the year ahead?
MORAYNISS: We’re going to continue to expand our first-look deals and overhead deals with producers and writers in order to feed our development pipeline. In addition to that, we expect great things out of our AMC and SundanceTV output deal. We’re also focusing on other potential output-deal partners, whether they’re broadcasters or production companies, around the world.
We’re excited about Fear the Walking Dead, the companion series to The Walking Dead. We’re excited about Into the Badlands. We’re excited about Great Barrier Reef. There’s so much great content coming out of eOne, through the development pipeline, through our output-deal partnerships and also through our acquisitions.