Fiona Crago

World Screen Weekly, August 7, 2008

General Manager

Beyond Distribution

When Fiona Crago joined Beyond Distribution 11 years ago, she had to take a considerable pay cut from the position she previously had at a law firm. She really wanted to get into the TV business and Beyond hired her as a television and film lawyer. “I ran the legal department for some years and then about five years ago the opportunity arose to put my hand up for the position of head of distribution,” she recalls. “I did not have a background in television sales so my boss, Mikael Borglund, who is Beyond’s CEO, took a massive chance on me by giving me the job! It was a huge career break for me and certainly I hope I have repaid him for the risk that he took in putting me in that role.”

Judging from Beyond Distribution’s success in selling a varied catalogue of programming—children’s, lifestyle, entertainment, science, technology, wildlife, feature films, docu-soaps and drama—to a wide range of broadcasters across the globe, Crago certainly has repaid her boss. And she loves her job, which sees her manage a team of some 20 people working in Sydney and London, secure financing for films and television programs and oversee international sales as well as acquisitions.

“Distribution is as much an acquisition business as a sales business. So my focus has been and will continue to be maintaining and forging new relationships with very high-quality producers,” Crago explains. “As a corporate entity we are also looking to invest in and buy some production companies.”

Another priority for her is to exploit all the ancillary rights around a property. “It is no longer enough to just do television sales; increasingly there needs to more and more focus on the other rights around a particular property.”

Already looking ahead to MIPCOM, Crago and her team are pulling together a diverse slate of programs. It includes children’s shows for MIPCOM Jr. like Snake Tales, a comedy about two completely different teenage girls from opposite ends of the world who are forced to live together in a run-down snake park in Outback Australia. It is produced by Westside Film & Television in association with Nine Network. Lab Rats Challenge, produced by Beyond Entertainment in association with Nine Network, is a science-based game show for kids. Beyond will also offer buyers the third season of the live-action show The Amazing Extraordinary Friends, the story of an ordinary boy who discovers the power to be extraordinary, which is produced in high definition by Greenstone Pictures. Beyond is also in production on a new factual series for kids. Following on the success of Backyard Science comes Crime Scene Detectives, a forensic series for children based on a Dorling Kindersley book.

In the drama genre, Beyond has the new series Dirt Game. From the corporate boardroom to the dirty mining trade, this is a character-driven drama from Harvey Taft Productions played out in the natural setting of the Australian outback. Dirt Game is being made for the ABC in Australia.

Beyond is also offering The Cho Show, which follows the renowned stand-up comedian Margaret Cho and her eccentric entourage as they scour the absurd depths of the entertainment industry, pop culture and societal taboo. Cho’s razor-sharp humor and unique outlook on everything from politics to pilates has kept her fans rolling in their seats for more than 20 years. This factual-entertainment series is produced by MTV Networks.

International buyers recognize Beyond’s commitment to quality programming. “Our buyers will make meetings with us and will consider our product very carefully because they know that we are a substantial distribution outfit. When they screen our programs they will be of high quality because we’re very selective about what we take on. We don’t take on things just for the sake of it. We carefully select what we think we can represent to the best of our abilities that will look good in our catalogue and won’t compete with our other programming and we can lavish a lot of attention on. So we feel that we can offer the best of both worlds because we are large enough to have the clout with buyers, but at the same time, we’re small enough that we can treat producers and their programs with a lot more love and attention than, say, a huge distribution outfit.”

Crago says that what she enjoys most about her work are the people. “The television industry in general is full of gregarious, interesting, well-traveled, knowledgeable people. It’s a fantastic job, you get to travel around the world and work with like-minded people.” When asked if the pay cut she took more than a decade ago was worth it, Crago quickly replies, “Very much so! And I’ve made up for [it] in due course!”

—By Anna Carugati