here<\/a>.<\/p>\nHeaney previously built up TCB Media Rights and Cineflix Rights; by the time of BossaNova\u2019s creation in 2020, \u201cthe business had changed so much. You need money and you need to embrace the fact that most projects are going to need some form of risk on your side to get them over the line. That should have bothered me more, really. But the team that we put together is more than good enough to navigate what we\u2019re going through right now. You have to be extremely resilient. You have to know that even though you might have a track record of doing something this way, you know you might go and do it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s Development Days, bringing producers and buyers together, have been paramount to BossaNova\u2019s success. Last year, the company brought in almost 50 buyers from around the world to hear 50 project pitches. Apps allow buyers to vote for projects they like, \u201cwhich then informs our whole greenlight process. That breathes oxygen into what we need to do. It\u2019s a crucial part of the business now. We have to do what the buyers want us to do. They\u2019ve got to sell projects up as well. We have to make sure that the projects we pitch are absolutely of the level. And when they give us their briefs, we have to make sure we\u2019re not letting them down. Every minute that they\u2019re there, their inbox is being filled up with people looking for meetings or pitching them something. So, they\u2019re giving us their time, and that is massively valuable. We have to make sure this is on message. We look to greenlight about 20 percent of those 50 projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
On what the market needs now, Heaney said, \u201cPeople want one- to four-part crime shows as well as returning series. The bar is getting higher. So, single strong docs on one side, and we\u2019re looking for long-running series we think can develop into franchises. If we\u2019re delivering royalty checks and those shows are no longer in the red, they\u2019re in the black, it means that we chose well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Delivering a show \u201con time and to brief and to budget\u201d is key, but so is the marketing effort. \u201cWe want to have all the deliverables because we want to exploit them as much as we can on as many platforms as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diversity within the slate has also been key, Heaney explained. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to load our slate with too much of the same. You\u2019ve got to carefully curate it and put it together with content that looks like it\u2019s not just there to make up the numbers. Buyers are not buying like that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Discussing trends within the still very popular true-crime space, Heaney referenced the importance of access. \u201cYou can\u2019t second-guess the market with true crime. If it\u2019s been done before, you\u2019ll want a new slant on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the session came to a close, Heaney discussed the importance of having the backing of Night Train Media and the synergies possible with the company\u2019s digital and scripted teams. \u201cIt\u2019s energizing. Night Train is very supportive. On the operational sides, my colleague Charlotte [Johnson, operations and finance director] works across all the businesses within Night Train now. That means the back offices are coming closer together, providing real benefits for the businesses. I feel as though we\u2019re only just getting going. We are getting used to the idea of being a group.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul Heaney, founder and CEO of BossaNova Media, discussed meeting the needs of buyers and maximizing returns to producers as day one of the TV Real Festival wrapped today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":23171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[6111,3352,11095],"class_list":["post-23169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-bossanova-media","tag-paul-heaney","tag-tv-real-festival-2025","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\n
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