Exclusive Interview: Kew Media Group’s Steven Silver

PREMIUM: Steven Silver, co-founder and CEO of Kew Media Group, talks to World Screen about the importance of scale and the prospects for future acquisitions.

In March of last year, Kew Media Group made waves in the content industry with its acquisition of six companies, which held a combined library of more than 10,000 hours of programming. Among the acquired outfits was Content Media Corporation (CMC), which itself controlled five production companies. Kew has continued its buying spree, snapping up TCB Media Rights and Sienna Films, and, according to Silver, more acquisitions are on the planner.

WS: When you co-founded Kew with Peter Sussman, what was your vision for the company?
SILVER: The vision for Kew was to create a large global content company. The idea was to begin with our core expertise in production and distribution, but over time expand the platform to include other content businesses like branded entertainment and talent management.

WS: What can Kew provide independent producers and production companies in today’s media environment?
SILVER: We seek high levels of alignment with the companies we work with, whether they are subsidiaries of Kew or third-party producers. We consider all of these companies stakeholders and are committed to being the best possible partner we can be. Given our experience as entrepreneurs in the content space, we can really appreciate the various challenges producers face and are able to work with them in unique and effective ways. The Kew platform offers access to a wide universe of buyers, access to resources, expertise and, of course, capital. But I think most importantly, we have a commitment to the entrepreneurial spirit that gave birth to those companies—we value it highly in all the companies we partner with. Kew fiercely advocates keeping that founder spirit alive.

WS: Why is scale important? What can a larger company offer that a smaller one cannot?
SILVER: Scale matters; it always has. It provides reach, it provides greater access to resources, whether that’s capital, an expanded universe of buyers and suppliers, or operational support. Scale and scope are critical components of Kew’s strategy. We have made no secret of the fact that we intend to get big and get big quick.

WS: Why was the acquisition of Content Media Corporation an important one?
SILVER: Content Media Corporation, which has now been rebranded as Kew Media, was the largest of Kew’s initial acquisitions. In CMC we inherited one of the best independent distribution platforms—it has a top-shelf sales team led by extraordinary management, all supported by great operational infrastructure. Kew had the balance sheet to supercharge that platform, which is exactly what we’re doing. The CMC acquisition allowed Kew to achieve a significant presence in the marketplace right out of the gate. It was really important to Kew’s birth and remains an important piece of Kew’s ongoing growth.

WS: What did Kew see in TCB Media Rights that made it of interest?
SILVER: TCB is one of the world’s premier non-scripted sales companies. Kew owns a number of non-scripted production companies, so the acquisition of TCB rounded out our sales platform, giving it a greater capacity to really make the most of the content and IP being generated by those non-scripted production companies.

WS: Are you looking to acquire more companies, and if so, in what areas?
SILVER: Kew will continue to make acquisitions in the content space, both scripted and non-scripted. We’ll continue to focus on North America, the U.K. and Europe, but also reach into Australia, New Zealand and Asia. We have an acquisition-led growth strategy, so you can anticipate Kew announcing ongoing acquisitions in the weeks and months ahead.

WS: A number of the Kew production companies specialize in factual and factual-entertainment programming. Are you seeing strong demand for content in that space?
SILVER: We see ongoing and robust demand for non-scripted programming and factual entertainment. In addition to the historical buyers, new buyers with big war chests such as Netflix, Amazon and Apple have announced significant spend on non-scripted programming. The great thing about Kew’s companies is that they deliver a wide range of product, whether it’s reality series, game shows, doc series, science, history, nature, etc. We are well placed to service the evolving appetite of our various buyers.

WS: Do these companies also work together on projects?
SILVER: Yes. The companies have organically found ways to partner internally. While we don’t impose that on the group, what we’re seeing is that people are finding their own way to leverage Kew’s platform.

WS: Given the shrinking attendance at movies theaters, can television and streaming services offer better exposure to feature-length documentaries nowadays?
SILVER: OTT platforms have already proved to be of enormous benefit to feature-length documentary filmmakers. That applies to high-end documentary series as well. I don’t think audiences care whether they watch an hour of content that is a documentary or a drama; if the programming is strong and compelling, they’ll watch it. Alex Gibney and his company Jigsaw Productions recently premiered Dirty Money on Netflix, which is an extraordinary series. And some of Gibney’s feature docs, such as Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, have streamed on Netflix, as did Campfire’s The Nightmare and Silicon Cowboys. Additionally, Kew’s distribution arm has a number of features streaming across the Netflix global footprint, including Hostage to the Devil, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards and Whitney: Can I Be Me. That content did not need a theater to reach an audience.

WS: Looking outside of the factual arena, what gains are you seeing in the scripted space?
SILVER: A number of Kew’s companies already produce scripted content, notably Sienna Films, Campfire and Frantic Films. Other companies inside Kew are developing scripted series as well. Kew’s distribution platform also sells a large and growing library of scripted content from other producers. So, we’ll continue to buy scripted production companies and form strategic relationships with scripted producers, showrunners and talent, as well as partner with third-party producers to keep adding scripted titles to Kew’s library. It’s a space that we are very active in, and will be judicious about how we play in it.

WS: What opportunities do you see in the areas of short-form and branded content?
SILVER: The Kew group includes the London-based company Spirit Digital Media. We are very focused on how to grow Spirit and how it can collaborate with the companies in the Kew group. We see real value in what Spirit does. When they produce a digital-first show that gets traction, that becomes a piece of proven IP that has captured an audience. It becomes available for migration onto other platforms. Spirit is also able to build brand value by taking our content online, where it can find ancillary forms of revenue, particularly in social media. I expect one day soon we will put a dozen 20-year-olds in the Spirit office; we’re just working first on determining what exactly we need to tell them to do!

WS: In which businesses do you see opportunities for growth in the next 12 to 24 months?
SILVER: We see enormous growth in all the companies that Kew bought. Several of them have the potential to grow to the size that Kew is today. We see opportunities in the ongoing acquisition of companies that are a good fit with Kew. And we see opportunities in expanding Kew’s platform into new areas such as talent management, branded entertainment and the live-events space.