ATF Buyer Profile: FOX International Channels

PREMIUM: As VP of acquisitions at FOX International Channels Asia, Michael Dick is keeping an eye out for strong properties across a variety of genres, including sports, feature films, drama series, factual and more.

Can you give me a sense of how much you buy annually?
As FIC has a wide array of channels, we are lucky to be able to pick up a fair amount of content annually. This has been increasing as we have been expanding our channel offering over the past few years, including launching FOX Sports Asia last year. Our content needs have grown to also accommodate our additional movie channels like FOX Family Movies and FOX Action Movies, as well as more local feeds for established channels like Star World and FOX.  As much as I would love for this to have dramatically increased my budgets year-on-year, increased competition over the past few years has driven increases in license fees. This, in turn, is driving us to be more creative in how we spend our budgets and in finding innovative ways to effectively use what we have.

What are the main genres you are acquiring?
We have a wide variety of channels, so we get to acquire a little bit of everything. Sports, of course, is a new addition for us. For the rest of our channel portfolio, we’re looking at acquiring everything from factual-entertainment shows to put on National Geographic Channel all the way through to reality series, formats, U.S. and international scripted dramas and comedies for our general-entertainment channels like FOX and STAR World, as well as blockbuster movies for FOX Movies Premium, FOX Family Movies and FOX Action Movies. Some of the harder genres to acquire for in recent years have been strong, critically acclaimed series that are hits internationally and that will also rate in our markets. There are many series that work well domestically in the U.S. and across Europe but just don't rate in our territories in Asia, so the challenge is finding the ones that we feel will work in our markets.

Are formats part of your remit?
We are increasingly looking at acquiring formats wherever they might come from. FIC Asia has had great success with recent original productions like The Apartment season two and Asia's Next Top Model season two. We are definitely looking to build on the success of these original productions and will continue to turn out even bigger and better shows.

Have your programming needs changed significantly over the past year?
The newest addition to the FIC Asia portfolio is FOX Sports and we have been steadily upgrading the channels not just in terms of on-air presentation, but also through investing in new sports content. For example, we recently announced deals for the Bundesliga and the French Open. We have also recently begun to make changes to FX, our edgier, more irreverent general-entertainment channel, by introducing movies to the channel, so our demand for quirky library movies that fit the FX brand have slightly increased.

What are some of the slots you currently need to fill?
We are fairly well stocked at the moment, so we aren't looking to fill any particular slots in the near future. We are currently looking ahead to see what movies and series are coming up next year.

Are you looking to co-produce with international broadcasters?
We are looking to increase our production output going forward so we are very open to any and all business models that make sense. We have great teams in place working on building our presence in the factual and entertainment original productions space for both National Geographic Channel as well as our general-entertainment channels, respectively. In the Chinese space, we are already well ahead of the game as a content producer and looking to ramp this up even further. We already produce over 1,000 hours of content for STAR Chinese Channel in Taiwan and beyond, and are currently co-producing over 10 movies for SCM (STAR Chinese Movies).

Do you see any major changes in your acquisitions remit in 2014?
I think we will be working increasingly closely with our content partners in 2014 and onwards to move closer to true day and date launches in Southeast Asia. We will also be focusing on expanding our rights to allow us to provide a better experience for our affiliates and subscribers who use our online catch-up players and apps.

Are there particular types of shows you're eyeing at Asia TV Forum?
We have and will always look for game-changing series like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Ray Donovan, The Walking Dead, Sleepy Hollow, and movies like The Avengers, The Hunger Games trilogy and The Wolverine. At ATF specifically, we will primarily be looking ahead to what’s coming up in 2014 and to start planning accordingly.