Shine’s Elisabeth Murdoch Delivers MIPTV Keynote

CANNES, April 8: As MIPTV
opened in Cannes yesterday, Elisabeth Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of the
Shine Group, delivered a keynote entitled “Creativity Without Borders.”

“Creativity is at the
heart of our business,” Murdoch stated. “Creativity is our very currency so to
speak. Without it, we might as well pack up our shoulder bags and laminates and
go home. How we encourage creativity, nurture it and allow it to thrive is
critical to our survival.”

Murdoch outlined some of
the challenges facing the business, with a looming recession, downward pressure
on budgets, cuts in network marketing outlay and an advertising squeeze. “But,
to all of this, I say, bring it on! Yes, we face an audience which is
fragmented beyond what we imagined possible—but they are actually
spending MORE time consuming our content then ever before. Everywhere around the world there is an increasing
appetite for our product. Moreover, there are more and more territories with
the economic power and maturing televisual appetite to ask for and to produce
their own programming.

“I am a huge believer in
the authority and value of our content,” she continued. “And at a time like the
present, encouraging, fostering and rewarding creativity is an economic
imperative rather than an indulgence.

“To answer these
challenges and to take advantage of the enormous opportunity they bring us all,
we have to embrace the very notion of creativity without borders
geographically, technically and rationally.”

Murdoch went on to discuss
the strength of the British formats business and the changes taking place in
the U.S., with independent outlets finding success with format sales. Murdoch
cited her company, ShineReveille International, as an example. “We are now
distributing not just our own hit series internationally, such as The
Biggest Loser, but some of the
biggest shows on U.S. network television, from Moment of Truth, FOX’s breakout hit from Howard Shultz and Mark
Burnett’s Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? They are certainly the biggest series to have
originated in the domestic U.S. market to be distributed internationally by an
independent outfit. And before you dismiss this as an economic phenomena
peculiar to the non-scripted business, take a look at the similar pattern that
is emerging even in the scripted distribution business with Lionsgate, or MRC,
to name but a few who are challenging the traditional deficit funding models
and changing the face of our distribution landscape.”

Murdoch continued: “The
change to U.K. copyright law and our increasingly visible profile on the world
stage has also proven of great interest to some of the world’s biggest scripted
talent looking to U.K. producers as co-production partners.” She cited the
example of Shine co-producing with Dick Wolf Law and Order: London for ITV. “For an American writer of Dick’s stature
to see the value in scripted adaptations in England, to reinvigorate and create
new IP in an English-language territory long after the first cycle of
international sales a studio may have sold, is a very real and very exciting
opportunity for all creatives working in a world without borders.” For Murdoch,
the company that is “way ahead of everyone in this game” is Sony, her partner
in Shine. “What Sony has
realized, and resolutely pursued for many years, is that the ever improving economic climate in emerging territories are
proving incredibly fertile territory for the Sony back catalogue of sitcoms.
Where Sony brings its expertise in crafting narrative sitcoms and characters,
their local co-producers bring their own reality. The relationships these
co-productions bring to Sony in these countries are hugely valuable. But
moreover, these new series, these new creative endeavors, quickly cultivate a
thriving new and fertile talent pool in these markets. How exciting is the
wealth of creative opportunities that this brings?”

Looking at the key to
being successful in the formats business, Murdoch said “that adapting formats
is all about creativity and not about bulk sales. The single most important
lesson is that you need to respect the integrity of the format and manage the
needs of the specific markets. To do this, you have to partner with the best
local team in the new market.”

Murdoch also touched on
the importance of multiplatform content, and the new forms of original web
programming like LonelyGirl15
and Kate Modern. “They aren’t
simply fantastic online serial dramas made out of short webisodes. The reason
it really works on its platform is that the producing teams have deep
familiarity with online video conventions and integrate them into their
creative architecture. The creative forces behind these stories know and
respect their audience, and they, the producers are their audience… They also
have a lot to teach us—as always. To continue to create great content we
must all remain passionate and curious about all forms of content and receptive
to the efficacy of different forms on different platforms.”

Murdoch then moved on two
her two central beliefs on creativity. One, that it is not hierarchical. “I
cannot mandate that my company is creative. I cannot mandate an idea becomes a
better idea. I cannot throw money at a mediocre idea and make it a hit series.
Nor can I over-prescribe the economic rationale behind every development idea.
Truly great ideas are not formulaic. While managers cannot ignore business
imperatives, I see many well-known content companies crush their own creativity
through the relentless pursuit of financial reward, economic efficiencies or
pseudo-scientific sales formulas.”

Two, she said, creativity
is not linear. “There is no law that predicts where a spark can come from, and
as I suggested earlier, a spark can come from any platform, any market and
vitally, from anybody within an organization. Creativity is a constant
activity—it is not about simple talent, that comes easily to some.
Creativity comes from a diversity of ideas and the ability of talented people
to weave together and act upon various triggers as they happen upon them.
Therefore encouraging collaboration at all times provides the best possible
environment for an idea to emerge and grow to its full potential.”

As she concluded her
keynote, Murdoch explained: “This kind of company is one with a vision and a
purpose. We want to make great television and we want to do that at scale. It
is very, very easy for an expanding and ambitious content company to forget
their creative priorities—to lose their creative culture and forget the
source of their success: their creative people, everywhere. If we want our
industry to prosper in the years ahead we must all learn not just to respect
and recognize creativity but listen to it also. Creativity is the only currency
guaranteed to trade us through the inevitable tumults of the coming years and
we should hear what it has to say.”

—By Mansha Daswani