Tricon Expanding Across All Genres

After more than a decade in the international TV industry, Tricon Films & Television has emerged as one of the leading independent production and distribution outfits in North America. The company has a diversified catalogue, spanning prime-time comedy and drama to reality, lifestyle, factual and doc fare, and recently even entered into the children’s business with Tricon Kids & Family. This strategy of taking a broad approach to the content business has served the company well.

Key to Tricon’s gains has been its strong catalogue of scripted content, which continues to increase each year. “The growth of our scripted business in distribution is attributed to establishing strategic partnerships and alliances, while targeting a specific product that complements our catalogue and client needs,” says Jon Rutherford, Tricon’s executive VP of distribution and business development. “As our international division continues to grow, it’s important for us to represent exceptional programming in all genres that will resonate with the international marketplace.”

The company represents content from partners such as the U.S. channels IFC and Pivot. From IFC, Tricon represents the original productions The Spoils of Babylon, Maron, The Birthday Boys, Comedy Bang! Bang! and brand-new series Garfunkel & Oates. Its Pivot programming slate includes Human Resources, HitRECord on TV! and TakePart Live, among others. Tricon also distributes the AMC Studios-produced drama series The Divide, which recently debuted on WE tv as its first original scripted drama, as well as Sensitive Skin, an HBO Canada dramedy series starring Kim Cattrall.

Unscripted has been the foundation, and continues to be a sweet spot of the Tricon offering. As for what’s selling best in the factual marketplace nowadays, Rutherford says that character-driven reality TV continues to dominate. “The key is finding unbelievable talents, in unusual or untapped subgenres,” he notes. “Factual series with a transactional element, such as our series Extreme Collectors (produced by Architect Films), have performed extraordinarily well. And there will always be demand for traditional lifestyle such as food, home, renovation and travel, but again, with the focus being on big characters.”

Just about a year ago, Tricon Kids & Family was launched as a boutique division of Tricon, featuring both acquired third-party content and original productions targeting children and family audiences. “Our strategy in this genre mirrors our original stance on establishing strategic partnerships and alliances, for both third-party distribution and production,” says Rutherford. “We have been very pleased with the results following the official launch of the division at MIPCOM 2013, and have made substantial efforts to continue our growth cycle for this market and beyond. There will be many exciting projects to announce leading into 2015.”

The company’s overall catalogue is largely comprised of third-party fare, and has almost doubled in the last couple of years with additional acquisitions. “While production remains an essential piece of Tricon’s business, the international distribution operation has a much higher demand for new content that could not be sustained from one production company alone,” Rutherford points out. “Tricon International has become a full 360-degree rights exploitation outfit, and our rising third-party business is a key component to this success.”

Another key area of recent growth has been its digital distribution presence. Tricon recently solidified partnerships with key transactional platforms such as iTunes and Google Play, with more to follow. “An expansion of our digital production business is an inevitable next step as we continue to establish new methods for monetizing our content across all platforms,” says Rutherford.

The company is not slowing down either. Looking ahead, Tricon is planning to continue to build up its production and distribution business in the areas of kids and family, scripted and unscripted. “Our goal is to continue generating business in all areas, but with a steady increase in volume. There will be exciting new projects and partnerships unveiled over the course of the next few months,” Rutherford tells World Screen Weekly.