Top Programmers Talk Co-Pros, Binge Viewing

CANNES: The Acquisition Superpanel at MIPCOM, moderated by World Screen’s Anna Carugati, saw DR’s Piv Bernth, Azteca’s Pedro Lascurain, Starz’s Carmi Zlotnik and Foxtel’s Ross Crowley discussing co-productions, binge viewing, output deals and more.

Starz’s managing director, Zlotnik’s mandate is to “source, produce and develop programming” for the premium service. When making content decisions, “I'm thinking about things that will cause people to want to subscribe. The ultimate effect that I'd like to achieve is for somebody to call a call center and ask for Starz because they want to see a program that we're producing."

Crowley, director of programming at Foxtel, is responsible for the Australian pay platform’s 18 entertainment channels. “We acquire some 20,000 hours a year, not counting content we produce locally. Half of our decisions are for existing subscribers and the other half is for the people out there demanding something different.”

Bernth oversees the development of local drama for the Danish pubcaster DR, a portfolio that has included the international hit The Killing.

As head of acquisitions at Azteca, Lascurain buys for three channels. “We are mainly after feature films. We buy around 600 feature films every year. We are also buying 60 to 70 series and formats and reality shows.”

When Lascurain joined Azteca, his first mandate was to help differentiate the service from the dominant Televisa. “The main thing that we acquired from the very beginning that was different was TV series that nobody in Mexico really considered. They were something we had to take from distributors after buying the feature films. We started programming them from Monday to Thursday from 7, 8 p.m. till midnight and we they did so well.”

When Foxtel launched in what is still a “relatively young cable market,” Crowley said, “the networks imposed a very strong fence against us taking any sports. Almost immediately we set about building alternatives.” That included targeting specific niche interests, such as fans of sci-fi.

For Starz, Zlotnik is focused on “programming that will create emotional engagement with our audience. All transactions are driven by emotion. So it's storytelling that feels compelling. My own personal meter for that is the truth and spectacle meter. I try to look for things that relate to the human experience and for things that have the spectacle. You have to cut through the din of everything else out there and deliver something that is not commonplace, not what the audience is used to seeing. Spectacle can be a big fight scene, it can be a visual effect, it can be an emotional performance by an actor. I'm scanning the marketplace constantly.”

Starz has been engaging in co-productions, developing ideas internally and occasionally buying off the international market. In those cases, “a lot of the times we've been tracking [a project] and reading scripts and looking at dailies so that when it's finished and we start into a sales negotiation, we're really familiar with the project.”

On creating Danish hits that will travel, Bernth noted, “Local stories often become universal stories if you're true to them.” After setting the bar so high with The Killing, Bernth says she told her team, “Try to smash everything about The Killing. Don't go back.”

Asked about his acquisitions approach, Lascurain commented, “When there's a TV series where they only have one season, 13 episodes or fewer, we try to wait till a second season has been made. Once it's been proved, then we'll acquire it.”

At Foxtel, meanwhile, Crowley says it’s become essential to launch U.S. imports as close to the American rollout as possible. And even if a show isn’t performing per expectation, “We keep everything in its time slot until it’s finished. In the ad-supported world, that cannot happen.”

Carugati then steered the conversation to co-productions. Zlotnik says Starz’s approach is marked by “flexibility in terms of deal-making and financial structuring and the way we partner with people.”

Bernth said one key to a successful co-pro is having complete trust in your creator and head writer.

Azteca is stepping up its co-pro efforts, with a second pact with Globo in the works, and Crowley says that Foxtel is about to embark on its first co-pro.

The discussion then moved to the importance of nonlinear rights. “We buy free TV, now we’re into pay TV, Internet, mobile and others,” noted Lascurain.

“Our first priority is to supply the channel with programming,” said Zlotnik. “Our second priority is to supply our distribution channels with programming, but there is an interesting issue that sits in the middle, which is the SVOD window. We need to have the SVOD rights. That's a non-negotiable issue.”

For Crowley too, the core product is still the linear platform, “and then we provide a number of ways to catch up.”

The executives were then asked how binge viewing is impacting their businesses. “You want to provide the option so the consumer can schedule things when they want to,” Zlotnik said. “And if they want to binge view, it's there as an option.”

The four executives were honored with World Screen Content Trendsetter Awards following the session, recognizing their innovative approaches to programming.