FOX Entertainment Leadership Marks MIPCOM Debut

Rob Wade, the new CEO of FOX Entertainment, together with Michael Thorn, president of entertainment, and Fernando Szew, CEO of FOX Entertainment Global and MarVista Entertainment, told MIPCOM delegates about how the company is positioning itself in the international market in a Media Mastermind Keynote in Cannes.

Wade recently took on the CEO post at FOX Entertainment following Charlie Collier’s exit to Roku. The sale of the bulk of the Twentieth Century Fox assets to Disney “gave us an opportunity to focus on rebuilding the company,” said Wade, who previously served as the head of alternative entertainment at FOX. “We look to content partnerships and low-cost production models as a way that we felt was really the path to the future of ad-supported television. We made some great acquisitions like Bento Box, TMZ, Studio Ramsay Global, MarVista. We also did some builds with Fox Alternative Entertainment, which is our unscripted studio, and FOX Entertainment, which is our scripted studio. We are here in this market to be great partners, to be buyers, to be sellers.”

Szew has taken on oversight of the new FOX Entertainment Global division since FOX’s acquisition of MarVista. The company’s “entrepreneurial spirit” is what attracted him to the deal, Szew said. “On the production side, MarVista continues to evolve and to be supercharged. We have this opportunity now to take all the assets that Rob talked about and start to trade with the world through FOX Entertainment Global. We’re here to buy, sell and co-produce.”

Thorn said that independence is one of the company’s greatest strengths. “We’re really free to build our creative partnerships in any way that serves the creative in the business model, whether we own it outright or we’re co-producing.”

Partnerships, low-cost production models and IP ownership are the hallmarks of the new FOX Entertainment, Wade noted, with the company having succeeded in that space with unscripted content. “We can bring that to scripted. Fernando is an incredible producer and a great distributor as well. While others are trying to hide their content behind the paywall globally and domestically, we are doing the opposite. We see the potential of working with networks, distributors, producers and production companies around the entire world to be able to get our content out further and, quite frankly, to monetize it as well as we possibly can. Before, there were four networks; now, there are a thousand. You need to go to other platforms to monetize your content. Otherwise, I just don’t think it’s going to be possible.”

Wade added that he thinks markets like MIPCOM are going to become even more important “as nimble, smart commercial deals focused on content are going to become more and more necessary.”

Thorn went on to note the benefits FOX Entertainment gleans from being a smaller independent organization. “First and foremost, it allows us to, by necessity, be able to partner with anyone. And in a typical vertically integrated environment, if you’re an outside studio, you’re trying to be the best project behind the vertically integrated projects because, you know, the majority of their greenlights are going to be ones that they own.  It’s so hard to get through. For us, it’s may the best project win, and that translates very meaningfully to the marketplace. On the scripted side, we started making direct deals. We spent time talking about and chasing and wooing the best available talent to work directly with us with no layers, no filters and producers and writers and actors really like the direct contact, where it’s not a game of telephone about why we’re moving forward with something and how we’re evolving creative. And with that independence, we were left with, quite possibly, the strongest animation brand in television. We see this incredible opportunity for us to continue that legacy both on our own air and for other platforms, as well as a big push internationally.”

Wade added, “What’s amazing about shows on our network is they can come from independent producers, and we will look after them. It’s a very curated network, we have a massive scale, and we have a lot of heft behind the network. So you know that if you come to FOX, you’re going to get the World Cup, you’re going to get the Super Bowl, you’re going to get the World Series of baseball. You’re going to get some big tentpole entertainment shows, which means not only are we a great place to work financially, but also it gives you the best chance of making your show a hit.”

Thorn added: “When you’re thinking about some of the other platforms that we compete with in streaming that are dropping maybe 15 series a month, we do much less than that a year. So each one of our shows is a favorite child as opposed to one of many. That care and attention, not just from the creative teams but from the whole company, is quite unique. It shows in the way we prioritize and the success of our shows.

FOX is an “extremely bold company,” Szew noted. “The sheer fact that these shows are being greenlit and that we’re now here launching FOX Entertainment Global and really open to not just looking at the network business in the United States, but also looking once again to build out based on the beachheads, based on the assets, based on other things that are coming, based on conversations that we’re having, really getting back open arms into the international marketplace.”

He continued, “We’re shopping for formats, for partnerships. We’re really looking at like-minded companies internationally, both on the creative production side and also on the distribution side.”

Wade returned to the advantage of selling the Twentieth Century Fox assets to Disney, noting, “it allowed us to be in a position where we can invest and acquire at a time when others are perhaps having to consolidate and spend less.”

On future acquisition opportunities, Wade said: “We’re building thoughtfully and carefully. I’m sure Fernando wouldn’t have sold unless he felt like there was something FOX could do. If there are companies out there that we feel we can help grow and can scale and can help scale our business, absolutely, we’re in the market.”

Wade concluded: “Even five years ago, when I started, we started to build these models out. We feel like we are ahead of the curve. We feel like we worked hard during the pandemic. We really looked at what the market required. We’ve been doing some incredibly interesting stuff in unscripted. We have an international financing fund. We are finding ways to find the best ideas, make them at the most beneficial costs with the best producers and the best business models. Our goal is for everyone to win. We’re not putting up walls. We don’t want to hide our content. We want to monetize it. We want to put it out there. We really feel like we have a great team, but a small enough team for us to be creative. And that doesn’t just mean creative in the shows, it means creative in our business and everything we do. Every part of the organization needs to be creative to really figure out the next 30 years of television. We love where we are. We love where we’re positioned. We’re very excited.”