Banijay Rights’ Matt Creasey Talks Distribution Trends

After closing its acquisition of Endemol Shine Group in July, Banijay continues to integrate the sprawling production and distribution operations of the combined entity (almost 200 outfits in 22 markets). Under CEO Cathy Payne, Banijay Rights now boasts a catalog of 88,000 hours of content, including a diverse array of English- and foreign-language drama from across the globe. Last month, Matt Creasey, who had been with Endemol Shine International since 2006, was tapped as executive VP of sales, co-productions and acquisitions at Banijay Rights for the rest of the world (outside of EMEA). He tells TV Drama Weekly about the combined group’s “unprecedented” lineup for this fall and weighs in on distribution trends and making an impact in the competitive scripted space.

TV DRAMA: What are your main scripted highlights for this fall?
CREASEY: We in this process as we speak of [combining] Banijay and Endemol Shine. The catalog of new and returning series on the drama and comedy sides is unprecedented, combining non-English-speaking throughout Europe and English-speaking coming out of the U.K. and Australia.

Coming out of Yellow Bird for SVT is The Hunt for a Killer. That will be very strong for us in Europe, and increasingly going into the U.S. as well. Out of the U.K. is a series of shorts for ITV from Greenacre Films called Unsaid Stories, which explores stories around the Black Lives Matter movement. That moved very quickly. It’s important and pertinent to the times and shows the great level of talent that was able to jump in, especially with all the shooting restrictions. Also for ITV, we have Viewpoint, a 6×60-minute series produced by Tiger Aspect Productions.

On the returning drama side, there’s Black Lake season three, which is for Viaplay produced by Jarowskij, and The Gulf season two, a New Zealand-German co-production, which is currently filming for ZDF and TV3. Hierro season two is back in production for Movistar.

We’re bringing new seasons of The Sandhamn Murders and Beck from Filmlance Sweden. On the English-speaking side, in Australia we’ve gone into production on RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service. It’s a reboot of the classic series from the ’90s, which we’re producing at Endemol Shine Australia for Seven.

Shows in the can and launching in the U.K. just after MIPCOM include Adult Material for Channel 4, produced by Fifty Fathoms. We’ll have some pretty big announcements on where that’s been picked up, including in the U.S. Grantchester for ITV and Masterpiece is returning. That will be delivered next year. Two Weeks to Live with Maisie Williams will launch on Sky. It’s a comedy-drama from Kudos. And again on Sky from Kudos, we’re able to now finish Tin Star season three with Tim Roth and Christina Hendricks.

Out of the Kew Media situation, we’ve taken back some shows that we were producing but they had initially come in on. There are some Agatha Christie movies that we produced through Darlow Smithson Productions—one-offs for Channel 5 in the U.K. The third one will launch in the last quarter of this year in the U.K., and we’ll be picking up sales internationally.

It’s a good mix of returning and brand new that we’re in production on—drama and comedy, English and non-English. That’s the exciting thing about the combined company. We really do bring together the best of drama.

TV DRAMA: The scale and breadth are quite staggering. Does that keep the Banijay Rights scripted slate somewhat protected from the impact of COVID-19, given you do have so much that is available for buyers to acquire at a time when they very much need completed content?
CREASEY: There’s a certain element of luck in that some shows had finished shooting just before lockdown, and the producers have been amazing in how they’ve managed to move into that postproduction editing world so quickly remotely to get these shows finished. And there’s an element of the breadth of the producers that gives us some advantage. By the way, it’s worth pointing out that there’s still an element of risk with all these shows going back into production. While we all have to be optimistic that they’ll see it through and will come out with these shows produced, there’s always a risk of shutdown. It has changed production, including with costs as well.

TV DRAMA: I’ve heard that COVID-19 precautions have increased production costs by anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent. How does that impact how you move forward on financing shows?
CREASEY: Across the industry, we’re finding it’s around 10 to 20 percent. It depends on the show. And there have been scenarios where shows shut down, and there’s a cost to shutting down as well as coming back up again. So that has to be taken into consideration. The main experience we’ve had to date is the collaboration with our partners—they’ve been pragmatic and realistic about what these costs are and sharing the costs. Our partners have understood that. It’s been challenging but invigorating conversations with partners who all have been very open to coming on board with these extra costs. We hope these costs can come down in the future and we hope they aren’t forever. It’s about coping now with what the situation is. Our partners need the content, so they’re pragmatic, and they also appreciate the shows they commissioned.

TV DRAMA: Scripted financing has long tapped into tax incentives in other countries. With travel being harder, do co-pro models have to change?
CREASEY: Just taking the U.K., for example, I think you’ll see a lot more domestic drama and comedy. There are still going to be these big-scale shows where we still want to travel to get the scale of what we want from the show. It’s not that our producers aren’t developing those types of shows. We hope we can do those in the future. We’re not put off by them. But in the foreseeable future, you will naturally see more shows being produced domestically.

TV DRAMA: How have you seen the distribution business evolve?
CREASEY: I sometimes wonder if “distribution” is even the right word anymore for companies. It’s so much more than that. Essentially, by being involved with producers, you’re involved with that process from day one all the way through in terms of scripts, casting, financing. With the big productions coming out of Europe, you’re not selling a finished program anymore; you’re selling the co-production way before. One of the main hats I wear is the co-production business in the U.S. We’re pitching at script stage—and we’re doing it on Zoom now, and we’re getting offers. Now in the pandemic, I’m talking to people who were so particular before but have now opened up more to co-productions. Of course, if your pipeline dries up, it’s a problem, and that’s where being the size we are does soften the blow. We do still need production to kick in—we need a pipeline.

TV DRAMA: Are you seeing more opportunities for non-exclusive deals on titles?
CREASEY: I split that into two. On brand-new content, where we’re looking at a higher-dollar, premium threshold, no. There’s an exclusivity that is vital, which we’re happy to provide on the basis of the return value.

The quality of the drama catalog we have has allowed us to be extremely flexible in our deal-making, where we’re doing a lot of non-exclusive or short periods of exclusivity and then non-exclusive across multiple platforms. And that’s across SVOD to AVOD. On linear, we are far tighter than we ever used to be in terms of what those holdbacks can be against exploitation elsewhere. And the linear broadcasters, if they need that exclusivity for longer, they need to step up. But yes, it’s something we are very active and detailed and strategic about doing because we’re strong believers in windowing to get the full value. I’ll give you an example: The Fall. That came out of its holdback in the U.S. on Netflix at the beginning of this year. We have a linear deal, two non-exclusive SVOD deals and we even have Amazon PVD [Prime Video Direct], which is SVOD but revenue share. They all see a value in that show because it’s good. It’s a show that people still discover. That’s almost a perfect model of what we want to do. The linear is exclusive with holdbacks against other linear. There are no holdbacks elsewhere. It’s a way of piecing that jigsaw together. It gives the show a breath of new life.

There are a lot of things people put down to COVID. I think COVID has accelerated a lot of things that were happening anyway. Windowing was already happening, but it really has accelerated.