eOne’s Darren Throop

throop-picEntertainment One (eOne) is a leading media company specializing in the acquisition, production and distribution of film, television and music content. Its library, valued at more than $1 billion, holds some 40,000 film and television titles, 4,500 hours of TV programming and 45,000 music tracks.

Among eOne’s recent feature films are Spotlight, winner of the Academy Award for best picture, as well as Trumbo and Eye in the Sky. The film division is focused on distributing movies to as many platforms and screens as possible. eOne Television is involved in everything from script development to financing to global distribution of scripted and unscripted shows. Its catalogue includes the megahit The Walking Dead, along with Fear the Walking Dead, The Book of Negroes, Halt and Catch Fire and Into the Badlands. eOne Family, meanwhile, manages the successful children’s property Peppa Pig and is nurturing Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom and PJ Masks to follow in Peppa’s footsteps.

As Darren Throop, president and CEO, explains, partnerships have been at the heart of eOne’s growth strategy, and the company has forged many across all lines of business. For one, eOne has had an output agreement with AMC Networks since 2013. In December of 2015, eOne introduced Amblin Partners, a new film, television and digital content-creation company formed in partnership with DreamWorks Studios, Participant Media and Reliance Entertainment, and earlier in 2015, eOne and prolific producer Mark Gordon formed an indie studio to create film, television and digital content that will be distributed internationally by eOne. Starting off 2016, eOne took an equity investment in Sierra Pictures, then acquired Dualtone Music Group and the unscripted production company Renegade 83.

Boosting eOne’s unscripted catalogue is one of Throop’s goals, along with growing the company’s presence in the U.S. and doubling its total business by 2020. As Throop tells World Screen, he is always interested in additional investments and partnerships and remains committed to his belief that producing, acquiring and distributing high-end content will ensure the company’s success.

WS: You have been expanding eOne’s presence and activities in the U.S. What has been the strategy in that market?
THROOP: In one word, it’s partnerships. We’ve been growing the U.S. [activities] through continued development of partnerships with some of the best creative talent in the world, and that permeates our entire strategy. We partnered with the guys at Anonymous Content and Participant Media to deliver this year’s Academy Award winner for best picture, Spotlight. Certainly in the last 15 months we’ve been doing all kinds of strategic partnerships: Amblin Partners, The Mark Gordon Company, Sierra Pictures, Renegade 83, Dualtone Music Group and on and on. So we’ve really been busy. What we can offer through our partnerships is our huge international-distribution infrastructure, which is unparalleled, quite frankly, for an independent. That’s very attractive to content producers and creators, who can access our international-sales organization both on the feature-film side and on the television side, and on the music and family licensing sides, too. So [our strategy has] really been about developing and nurturing relationships with the highest quality producers in the world.

WS: Looking at your unscripted slate first, you mentioned Renegade 83. What does it bring to eOne?
THROOP: We’ve had a long, very successful U.S. reality business already under Tara Long [eOne Television’s executive VP of U.S. alternative programming], but Renegade 83 really diversifies our alternative program division in the U.S. It brings us deep relationships with the likes of FOX, NBCUniversal and Discovery. [Renegade 83] has great shows like Blind Date and Naked and Afraid, which we love, but the main thing is when we met [founders] David [Garfinkle] and Jay [Renfroe], we recognized early on that they had the same values and the same corporate culture as eOne, and their entire team is a very, very good fit for eOne.

WS: You’re trying to boost your unscripted programming to 400 hours this year. What opportunities do you see in that genre?
THROOP: We started a few years ago by acquiring Paperny Entertainment and Force Four Entertainment in Canada, building on the foundation that Tara Long and her team in the U.S. have been laying for some years now. Independent of Renegade 83, we were going to deliver 400 hours of unscripted content anyway, so Renegade will just add to that. There’s a significant amount of activity going on in our unscripted business.

WS: What has been your strategy in scripted programming? You’ve certainly had a lot of great titles.
THROOP: Yes, we’ve had a lot of great success, and we’ve really been augmenting our scripted team. We brought in Pancho Mansfield last year to lead our scripted television division. Our scripted business is anchored by high-quality English-language content, and we focus on the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Canada. We have offices in all of those territories, and we have relationships with the key broadcasters as well as with so many producers in each of those territories. That’s been important for us. It really comes down to what I said about partnerships: finding the best creative minds and offering up our global footprint. We have a lot of shows going—a lot of renewals but also exciting new shows like You Me Her on DIRECTV, Cardinal on CTV and Mary Kills People on Global. Of course one that everybody is excited about is Sharp Objects, starring Amy Adams, for HBO, [based on] a novel by Gillian Flynn. So a lot is going on in scripted, which is great. It’s a core competency for us here at eOne.

WS: There’s nothing like a drama to help brand a channel and get people’s attention.
THROOP: You’re right. When [drama] works, it really works; it attracts audiences and, quite frankly, it holds audiences, so most of the broadcasting partners, whether traditional linear or cable, are all looking for that next big scripted show that’s going to drive audiences to their channel.

WS: You mentioned Mark Gordon. It’s been a little over a year since that partnership started. What is it yielding for eOne—just television, or are you also looking at feature films?
THROOP: Both. Mark and his team have been very, very busy. They are working on Designated Survivor with Kiefer Sutherland, which is a direct-to-series order for ABC in production in Toronto. They’ve got Conviction going on in Toronto as well. Of course, they received renewals on all the historic Mark Gordon shows, like Criminal Minds and Grey’s Anatomy. After we did the deal, Mark also launched Quantico for ABC, which got picked up for a second season. So he’s incredibly busy on the TV side. As it pertains to feature films, we’ve got a number of films, both big and small, that Mark is working on in various stages. Through Mark, our own production outfit and our many partners, we continue to feed our film business on a global level.

WS: The film business in general has been a little more challenging than television. What is the strategy for your film business, and how many films would you like to have in production each year?
THROOP: Yes, the film business is evolving, not just for eOne, but for everyone. That being said, when we look at our [new] slate, we have what we view as our strongest slate ever, with titles like The BFG from Amblin Partners, The Girl on the Train, Now You See Me 2, our own David Brent: Life on the Road and on and on. So we’re looking for good box-office success in the next 12 months. What we want to see from our film business is our own production unit delivering four to five features a year. We want The Mark Gordon Company to deliver a few films for us, and we’d love to see Sierra Pictures find a few films for us as well. Nick [Meyer, founder of Sierra Pictures] and his team are the best at what they do and they get a lot of opportunities for new content, so hopefully they can also find us some films that we can deliver to audiences in our territories.

WS: Even though people may not be going to movie theaters as much as they used to, they’re certainly watching films in other ways.
THROOP: They’re still going to the movie theaters. If you look at the success of Spotlight, a film that we had globally, that’s a real winner from a box-office standpoint. It’s approaching $90 million in sales already. It had a fairly modest budget; it won two Academy Awards. So there are certainly people going to cinemas. It seems in the last 12 months or so [attention has] been centered on superhero movies. We think that will change with some of the films that we’re going to deliver in the next 12 months.

WS: Are you looking to invest in other companies? What types of companies would fit into your portfolio?
THROOP: We’re always looking at a lot of different companies. We want high-quality production capabilities, we want library, we want direct relationships with consumers. Expanding our territorial footprint has been of interest to us for a long time, so we’ll continue to look for opportunities to get into new territories. We’re always on the hunt for new businesses for eOne.

WS: We live in a multiplatform, multi-device world. People are watching content in all sorts of different ways. What opportunities do you see in this world for eOne’s distribution business, whether they be in traditional film, television or home entertainment?
THROOP: I think there’s opportunity in every single one of those areas. Home entertainment will continue to be a challenge, but all these new consumer platforms are driving increased viewership, and that is driving increased demand for high-quality content. And our strategy, as we said before, is centered around the highest quality content we can make and find. We know that consumers will gravitate to high-quality scripted programming like that of The Mark Gordon Company and Amblin Partners, high-quality films like Spotlight and high-quality children’s programs, because they have the ultimate choice. And when they make that choice, they’re going to gravitate to the best creative that they can find. So strategically, we put a stake in the ground, and that’s where we want to be as a company. Those partnerships we talked about before speak to the changes in consumer delivery and consumer platforms.

WS: Are there other partnerships that are important to eOne?
THROOP: The one that’s been fantastic for us has been the one with AMC, who we partner with for shows like The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead and Into the Badlands. We sell [the shows] internationally; they keep their domestic channel rights. That’s been a great partnership for us. We’ve got output deals with a number of different studios, and those have been good as well. There are pre-negotiated terms where we use our distribution infrastructure to get the content into the hands of the consumers, to bring what they’re very good at together with what we’re really good at, and that’s been driving results for us and for them.

WS: eOne has had a great family business while a lot of other companies have struggled in this area. What’s been driving the success of eOne Family?
THROOP: First of all, it’s Olivier Dumont and his wonderful management team. At about 80 strong, the team manages brands like Peppa Pig, PJ Masks and Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom like they’re their own kids. We’ve got great creative partners in Astley Baker Davies, the gentlemen who brought us the Peppa Pig franchise, which has been great. So part of [the success] is creative; part of it is a very, very strong management team taking care of every single piece of those brands and nurturing them. Another piece of it from an eOne standpoint is that we have a very diversified portfolio; we let those brands develop at their own rate. We don’t push them into retail. We’re in no hurry; we think they can last for decades, not for years. And if we just maintain that kind of discipline and measured approach to getting them in front of the customer, the customer will appreciate that and enjoy those brands for decades.

WS: I also understand that eOne has been building its music business. What’s been the strategy there, and what opportunities can eOne offer the artists that it works with?
THROOP: Over the last few months, we’ve made a few strategic acquisitions. One was a company called Dualtone Music Group, which brings some of the biggest bands in the world, including The Lumineers. And the other was a company called Last Gang, where we also brought in their founder, Chris Taylor, who’s leading our music division. eOne’s had a nice music business for a long period of time. While the music business went through some significant upheaval over the last ten years, we now look at that business and see stability and, quite frankly, growth. The subscription services are driving revenue for music companies. Our music company is integrated with the rest of our portfolio companies, so every piece of television that the Renegade 83 folks will produce, for instance, has music content embedded in it. Peppa Pig has a theme song, and all of our movies have music in them. So we will not only launch and nurture the careers of new artists, we’ll also maintain our own library of content, using it for our own feature films and our own television shows—we have management, publishing, licensing and mastering divisions. So when you look at the business overall, we just think that there’s an opportunity to grow that business. Again, we have a world-class operation as it pertains to independent music. We have new leadership and some great brands there as well, so we’re just going to push a little harder on music than we have in the past few years, now that we see growth returning to the industry.

WS: Where else do you see growth opportunities as you look 12 to 24 months into the future?
THROOP: I see growth in each one of our divisions. I think we’re going to see strong single-digit growth out of our film division, and we’re going to see continued growth out of all of our television divisions, including our scripted business [with] The Mark Gordon Company and our own unscripted business [with] Renegade 83. We’re certainly going to see growth in our family business, with Peppa Pig leading the charge and PJ Masks and Ben & Holly right behind with very, very strong broadcast numbers and engagement numbers. And for music, obviously we’re reinvesting, so we’re looking for strong momentum. Each one of our divisions should continue to drive growth for eOne and keep us on track to double the size of the business by 2020.

WS: Doubling the business by 2020 is a big strategy for you, isn’t it?
THROOP: It’s something that my management team and I, and all eOners, can reach for, and it gives a kind of stake in the ground for the external stakeholders as well.