BossaNova Media’s Paul Heaney

BossaNova Media CEO Paul Heaney tells TV Real about where the business is today and its plans for the year ahead.

It’s been two years since Cineflix Rights and TCB Media Rights alum Heaney established BossaNova Media and a year since the co-production and distribution outfit received a transformative investment from Herbert L. Kloiber’s Night Train Media.

TV REAL: What’s been your approach to building the BossaNova slate since launch?
HEANEY: We’re not obsessed with growing the number of new titles. We want enough volume, noise and quality of the right shows. We’re also not looking at padding out a catalog with potential channel fodder. Others may have that business model, and maybe we will in the future, but this is our plan right now. We see it as more of a slate than a catalog—and maybe that’s a key difference with BossaNova.

TV REAL: There’s much talk about the AVOD potential for factual content, particularly in FAST channels. What’s your approach to this segment?
HEANEY: There are huge burgeoning opportunities for franchised TV shows to have their own channels. That’s certainly something we’re looking at. We’ve just helped create potential franchises in some cases, so we are at the build phase, seeing what opportunities are there but looking to control the process a bit more, building the BossaNova brand and the titles themselves. Doing the right thing for our producers is core to our ambitions.

TV REAL: How do you see the prospects for licensing content to AVOD platforms on a revenue-share basis?
HEANEY: We don’t want to miss an opportunity, so we’re open to it, but we’re also very open to a license fee deal! We’re pretty fast-moving because we’re small. But I’m not getting hung up by it. If we can do it, we do; if we can’t with our resources, we won’t.

We’re doing our research, talking to as many people as possible and building up our expertise. We won’t turn down a revenue opportunity if it makes sense. Still, at the same time, we’ve got a duty to the producers to ensure we’re not underselling them or overexposing them when we’re not ready yet to make it work properly. We’re ensuring we’re making the right decisions in how we market ourselves and what sort of slate we have. I’m not happy to bring in content for the sake of having new content. That can be counterproductive. Everyone’s a million miles away from that now. We concentrate on getting the best deals for the shows. And because there is so much choice for the viewer, commissioners have to make their projects more incredible, eye-catching, fresher, edgier, etc. There isn’t any room for content that just does a little job; it’s got to do a proper job. The market has, without a doubt, changed in this respect. Unscripted has to do the job of a scripted show in respect to attracting an audience—why shouldn’t it?

TV REAL: What does the team look for in acquisitions?
HEANEY: In the producer, a track record of delivering and executing on time. A well-researched idea. If it’s a commercial specialist factual series, you need good archive and an original take on something. Even if it’s the same story, you need an original way in. If it’s simplistic and doesn’t have enough layers, we won’t do it. We’re not going to do anything that looks too cynical or simplistic. Everything needs a certain layer of sophistication with respect to the audience. All producers realize you have to have something clever now. It doesn’t have to be intellectual or cerebral. If you look at our Development Day (coming up to the third as BossaNova and the eighth overall across the two businesses), the projects that stood out were sometimes outrageously original in the topic, but some ideas were only more original in their angle and execution rather than the story. That’s what we’re looking for.

TV REAL: How was Development Day this year?
HEANEY: It was across two days. We had 124 projects, whittled down from 300. We had 94 factual projects on day one; the rest were true crime/stranger than fiction on day two. We had over 70 buyers who then voted for their favorite projects. Out of those 124, maybe 10 percent to 15 percent will be ultimately commissioned or co-produced by us. That’s not a bad strike rate. If a broadcaster platform had a similar day, would you expect 10 percent of those projects to go into production? Maybe, maybe not. We’re heavily vetting the projects. We’ve encouraged the producers to put more breadth into the range of ideas they’re coming up with. Some might just not hit the mark. The buyers’ online voting process totally informs our decisions. It’s their votes, plus our forecasts, experience and gut feel.

TV REAL: What trends are you seeing in true crime?
HEANEY: You hear that the market has hit saturation for many returning true-crime franchises. At the same time, there is a demand for new strands. If it were four years ago, we’d have more returnable true-crime series than we do now. We have two returnables. And that’s fine for now, till the market tells us something else. Do we have some singles, some two-parters, some potential four- and six-parters, all in the “stranger-than-fiction, you can’t make up” areas? Yes, we do—a complete mixed offering.

TV REAL: What other trends do you see in the market?
HEANEY: The big elephant in the room is about the distribution business itself. How can smaller businesses survive when projects they are offered need financing almost every time? It looks like it’s sustainable if you’re a big business. At TCB, in the beginning, most of the shows we got were funded. In this world, the opposite is the case. [Shows comes funded] 10, 15 percent of the time.

TV REAL: What level of funding gap do you need to provide?
HEANEY: Sometimes it’s 100 percent when we’re fully commissioning. You take that risk.
If it’s not 100 percent, it could be 10 or 20 percent. It depends on the sort of deal you do with the producer. Do you take a bit of backend and a smaller percentage? The whole point is, can we start delivering royalties to this producer and get it into the black? That’s the whole point. You’re not going to be able to do it on every show, so you have to overdeliver on the ones you do.

Producers can be put into a difficult position. They want their show to be made, but at the same time, they’ve got to protect their IP from being flogged around the world with no return, which does happen.

TV REAL: How do you manage growth in this market, where everything changes so fast?
HEANEY: Having done it twice before helped. Everything is a challenge, but there’s a solution for everything. Though I’m often stumped. It’s part of the fun of having a business. I’m always trying to err on the side of caution, but you have to test yourselves and give the business a bit of stretch target. We could easily be the fastest-growing distributor in the U.K. this year. But we came from a very low base! That is not the aim, however. I’m here for many reasons—the relationships, and the challenges, keep us all vital.