Exclusive Interview: all3media’s Farah Ramzan Golant

PREMIUM: Farah Ramzan Golant, the CEO of all3media, tells World Screen that when Discovery Communications and Liberty Global formed a joint venture to acquire all3media, she saw an opportunity to take the company to the next level, all the while preserving creativity, which is the heart of the content business.

WS: How did the Discovery and Liberty Global deal come about and how does all3media benefit from it?
RAMZAN GOLANT: Two things happened at about the same time. We were coming to the end of a cycle of ownership by a private-equity company, Permira, which had started in 2006. The private-equity model predicated that the shareholders would be keen to realize their investment and exit. At the same time, we were starting to see real traction in a variety of investments. Our investment in all3media america, which had been going for a year and a bit, was really starting to pay dividends with increases in revenue and profitability. There was a sense of real opportunity in Germany, where we have a substantial business that had its highest ever growth in the year leading up to the sale. And the U.K. business had, against quite challenging odds in the landscape, increased revenues by 4 percent.

So on the one hand, our shareholders were coming to the end of their cycle; on the other, the company was ready for its next stage of growth, and stage left arrive Discovery and Liberty Global. It was a fantastic deal for us because they represented the three things that were critical to the next stage of our growth and what this company needed in its shareholders: they are very well informed, very decisive and they have a good understanding of our company. They were able to say, upfront and transparently, that they were going to make a new 50/50 joint venture. Discovery, clearly a megabrand, and Liberty Global, another megabrand, [wanted] to acquire all3media as an asset, with a real interest in getting very close to program makers—not just buying programming but securing IP at source. They wanted to take a long-term horizon and through the governance of the 50/50 venture were able to show us, because our P&L would not be consolidated into either Discovery or Liberty Global, that we would have autonomy from our shareholders—and the one thing we prize more dearly than anything is our creative autonomy and our commercial independence. So two backers turn up. They have a long-term horizon, they understand the company and are very well informed, and then say, We want you to grow according to your federal creative model and we can give the strategic backing that can take the company to the next level—so what’s not to love?

WS: Are you letting the individual companies in the group manage creativity on their own, or are you addressing creativity across the company?
RAMZAN GOLANT: Of course, everybody goes along with the principle of collaboration, but in real life what makes good sense? Our group is founded on the principle of individual companies that are like tribes in their own right. We have very strong drama companies, very strong factual-entertainment companies, a strong constructed reality capability, etc.—and they are very rooted in their creative product, and creative capabilities that you would be mad to tamper with. Each company runs its own P&L and is completely autonomous in its development slate and its creative leadership. We have a mechanism to review each company monthly; we review talent, the product pipeline, the P&L. Each company grows in its own right; it isn’t forced or mandated to collaborate with others. I think collaboration is an act of voluntary eagerness; it’s not something that somebody can dictate. Collaboration comes because there is chemistry between people, because they come together and say, I come from factual entertainment, or I come from drama, or I come from documentaries and one plus one can make three. So [each company’s first responsibility] is to grow their own distinctive labels and then where they want to and where we can facilitate collaboration, we’re always thinking about the methodology to enable that. I see the development slate of each of the companies and sometimes I can spot something and say, Hmm, Company Pictures is a prestigious drama company and Lion Television is an amazing multi-genre company and they both have an interest in China and they might collaborate on a very good project for China. Sometimes we’ll have a group event where we’ll put a significant amount of development money on the table as a prize and we’ll get individual companies to compete for it.

And then there is another form of collaboration that we are starting to see the benefit of. We created all3media america, where our diverse labels are supported by one production infrastructure on one campus in Culver City. Objective or Maverick or Lime or Studio Lambert can show [projects to] their development executives in all3media america and say, We can get this over the line in our market. If you give us U.S. market intelligence and creative spin, we can see if this is one we can bring to America quickly. That is another form of collaboration.

WS: What are your priorities for all3media america?
RAMZAN GOLANT: Years ago, Studio Lambert went to the U.S. and so did Maverick. It then became clear that scale in America was really important. Instead of a variety of tiny little offices trying to get traction, we brought them together in one campus, preserved the diversity of labels, so each company has its pod, with creative and development execs talking to customers and pitching ideas and then actually producing through one infrastructure, which is all3media america, so they get the best deals, they get the best precedents. There is a really muscular production capability that we have funded, so that the individual companies aren’t wasting their money on all sorts of back-office activities—finance, HR, legal. We’ve found that this really pays dividends. A year ago we had three or four of the companies there, now we’ve got nine or ten. We’re building bigger, better relationships with the U.S. networks. CBS knows us from Undercover Boss and FOX knows us from Kitchen Nightmares. They are hearing from us in a much more coordinated way.

all3media america is also a receiving vehicle for any acquisitions we might want to make. In March we announced a partnership with Heather Schuster for the start-up Morocco Junction Entertainment. That’s another way to optimize all3media america. This is all in addition to our East Coast presence where Optomen and Lion have been operating successfully for over 10 years.

WS: The traditional flow of formats for European companies has been to make a show, make it work in Europe, and then make it bigger and better in the U.S. Do you see all3media producing in America and then taking those shows internationally?
RAMZAN GOLANT: I’m really wired to be optimistic so my natural tendency on opportunities is to say, of course, anything is possible! We do Gogglebox in the U.K. and then we take it to America and it’s on Bravo as The People’s Couch. We do Undercover Boss and take it to the U.S. and that is the natural flow. But Million Second Quiz didn’t start here. We developed it here and [pitched it to U.K. broadcasters] but we didn’t get the traction we wanted, so without any precedent, it was a paper idea, it went to NBC. NBC got right behind the ambition of the idea. Million Second Quiz didn’t turn out to be the hit that we wanted but it showed great capability and innovation, a hybrid between a live sporting event daily strip, 24/7 online, and a prime-time show every day with a play-along app and second-screen element and a fully engaged audience. We learned from that. Now, whether the second iteration will play in the States, for which we are actively talking to NBC, there is no reason not to bring it back to Britain in its evolved state. It might be we made a really big thing in the States and actually an evolved version of it might come back home.

WS: Innovation is key nowadays. Could you give some other examples of innovative initiatives at all3media?
RAMZAN GOLANT: There are different types of innovation—first, innovation in content. Gogglebox is a genuinely new kind of show. It’s people watching people watching TV. Who would have known we would have had such a hit on our hands. It’s quite a modest show where you watch people watching TV and they are talking about stuff. It isn’t really about people watching TV; it’s about the fabric of people’s lives. There just hasn’t been anything like Gogglebox, that sense of it being the world’s largest focus group turning into a TV show, which is live and current and shows the events of the preceding three or four days. Then there is innovation in competency. We have launched Little Dot Studios, which is a different kind of company for us; it’s not a long-form TV maker but it’s a short-form content company that works with YouTube making original YouTube channels, making our own original content channels, reaching out to brands to manage their channels, program brands as well as advertising brands like Pepsi. We have launched Apollo 20, which is our branded-content company. There is innovation in content matter, there is innovation in competency and then there are good old-fashioned experiments like Midsomer Murders, which in its 16th season is a proper “grand dame” of drama. And then we launched a Facebook game. Who would have imagined that a traditional beautiful drama got a new lease on life with a Facebook game?

WS: Looking at the group as a whole, in what areas do you see growth in the next 12 to 24 months?
RAMZAN GOLANT: We are famous for both scripted and unscripted. Over the years we have had such success in unscripted, factual entertainment, and while we have drama coming out of Company Pictures and Lime and Objective, and a terrific drama capability in New Zealand in South Pacific Pictures, I would like us to think about drama more carefully, because this is the Golden Age of drama, never mind the Golden Age of TV—and it’s not only drama that is produced in individual territories but also drama that sells internationally. And with new entrants into the market, like Netflix and Amazon putting dollars into the origination of drama, it’s a very exciting place to be.

I’d say one of the areas where we want to push further is entertainment. We have a great company in Objective. They have done The Cube and Reflex. Studio Lambert has done Million Second Quiz. We could do with more entertainment.

We really want to continue our growth trajectory in America, because apart from all3media america, which is on the West Coast, we have two companies on the East Coast, Lion and Optomen, and they are really going gangbusters. We want to support, challenge and enable our American companies to grow and grow.