Paul Heaney

TV Real Weekly, February 13, 2008

Managing Director

Cineflix International Distribution

The demand for non-scripted programs has shifted over the past couple of years, and distributors of this content have been making great strides to keep pace with new trends. Products now have to be “tougher and more durable and more resilient,” says Paul Heaney, the managing director of Cineflix International Distribution, a division of the producer Cineflix. “Each show has to be something for everyone.”

Heaney and his team have seen the demand for programs shift away from the feature-length documentary, which the company once specialized in, and more towards factual entertainment. “You can’t build a business on [one-off documentaries anymore],” Heaney notes. The appetite for lengthier docs does still exist to some extent, “as long as it’s on a very broad subject, but it can still only be a slice of your output,” he says. Cineflix has, however, still seen great success with its feature-length docudrama Jonestown: Paradise Lost, and is considering producing another feature-length special.

Another area that has been successful for Cineflix is specialist-factual programming, which five years ago was a big piece of the company’s pie; but even that is now shifting gears. “Specialist factual is now being dressed up as factual entertainment,” says Heaney, citing offerings such as Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, which are “supposedly specialist-factual shows, but now you’d say that they’re almost factual entertainment.

“I think broadcasters are now distilling their requirements down to ‘we want hit shows,’” he continues. “It’s no longer ‘that’s our specialist-factual slot and that’s our factual-entertainment slot and that’s where we put our formats.’”

Furthermore, Heaney has seen Cineflix gradually moving toward more format offerings as well, making use of the talent on the production side of the business. “The talent you have dictates the sort of shows you make anyway,” he says, “as well as the demand from the marketplace.”

Heaney’s grasp on the evolving marketplace, coupled with an eye toward future trends, is what put him at the helm of Cineflix International Distribution. After cutting his teeth in ad sales for 13 years, Heaney made the leap into the television distribution side nearly a decade ago. “I had always looked over my shoulder at this business and thought, ‘One day�that’d be quite nice,’” he says.

And his day did in fact come; he scored a gig in factual programming at Explore International (now National Geographic Television International) in 1998. Four years later, he met Glen Salzman, the CEO of Cineflix, which was looking for someone to start its distribution arm. “I actually thought I could really make my mark on this,” he says of taking on the task. “I put a huge amount of effort in, and it was the opportunity I had been looking for for a long, long time. I put heart and soul into it since then.” He says that one of the things he loves most about his job is “playing an intrinsic role in getting great shows financed�without having to make them.”

Heaney’s efforts over his five and a half years with Cineflix have paid off, and along the way the company has taken on several other executives who share his zest for growth and success. “We manage to employ really good people. That’s a really big percentage of why we’ve had such success, the people right here in this office,” he notes.

Cineflix has plans to launch some 10 new properties at MIPTV, including key third-party programs, and it has almost 25 series currently in production. These offerings run the gamut of specialist factual, factual entertainment, presenter-length docs, as well as formats. “We’re just responding to the market’s demands,” he says. “And we can’t slavishly follow it; if we get commissions, we get commissions, but so far so good.”

—By Kristin Brzoznowski