Hunting new business models along La Croisette
As the industry grapples with the challenges of the so-called ‘new content economy’, Clive Whittingham looks at the new (and sometimes old) business models players big and small are coming up with to secure their futures.

Mipcom is entering its fourth decade
When The Weakest Link is one of the big, domineering advertising hoardings on the side of the Palais, and Banijay are trumpeting yet more sales of Survivor and MasterChef, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re at Mipcom 2014. Or 2004. Or 1994.
The industry is changing though, rapidly, with the old models decaying away almost as fast as the audience itself.
The week in Cannes started with predictably dire predictions for the future of legacy businesses. Evan Shapiro, media analysts and former boss of US cable channel Pivot, revealed his findings from a collaboration with UK audience measurement firm Barb, highlighting the growing dominance of YouTube and social video, as well as the lack of engagement in traditional broadcast television among under-35s.
The study shows social video and streaming platforms now account for over 80% of watch time for 16-34s in the UK.
Shapiro said consumers must be at the centre of everything TV companies do from now on, as live broadcast and pay TV continue to see their audience shares decline and the array of SVoD’s create too many options for them to make a decision.
Addressing the lack of engagement in traditional broadcast TV among under-35s, Shapiro said: “If you’re in a windowless conference room in your headquarters with no one under the age of 35 in the room to help you make your decisions, you’re fucked. I’m not kidding.”
The global content business should also be bracing itself for up to two more years of “chaos, mergers, sales and bankruptcies” as the TV ecosystem rightsizes itself, according to Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) boss Tony Vinciquerra.
So, it’s interesting to look around our coverage of the event and pick out what the players, big and small, are doing by way of coping/adapting.

Evan Shapiro issued his stark warning in Cannes today
Coproduction is basically the word of every market at the moment, even among some of the world’s biggest players who were previously fastidious about owning 100% of everything they poured money into. Channing Dungey, chair and CEO of Warner Bros Television Group (WBTVG), says she is interested in doing more coproductions between the US and international partners. During a keynote discussion, Dungey said she is heading to London in December for meetings with a view to exploring opportunities in the coproduction space.
All3Media CEO Jane Turton is eyeing scripted production companies to try and broaden her portfolio of predominantly factual and formats companies, following a buyout by deep pocketed RedBird.
Ben Samek, CEO of Banijay Americas, says that investing in creative-led start-ups, rather than looking at strategic M&A, will drive the next phase of growth for the production group whose remit spans companies in the US, Mexico and Latin America.
ProSieben CCO Henrik Pabst outlined plans for a root-and-branch overhaul of business operations, transforming it from a “multi-linear broadcast organisation to a super streamer.” The German executive says that the company’s priority is migrating viewers to its Joyn VoD platform, while revamping the commissioning strategy to concentrate on streamer-friendly programming. It will also enforce an aggressive “kill your darlings” policy to axing under-performing heritage shows.
The BBC’s Kate Phillips was here promoting daytime as a nursery slope for desperately needed cost-effective ideas after starting her reign as the pubcaster’s head of unscripted with splashy (expensive) punts on Gladiators and Survivor reboots.
Blue Ant Media continues to double down on its commitment to FAST, announcing a wide-ranging content and carriage deal with Pluto TV. / ITV Studios (ITVS) also revealed plans to extend its global digital media footprint with the launch of new label Zoo 55, to be led by Warner Bros International TV Production (WBITVP) executive Martin Trickey. The idea is to exploit potential of taking more brands into the digital realm – YouTube in particular, alongside social media, FAST channels and streaming platforms.

The new content economy was at the forefront of people’s minds
Expect to see more consolidation and collaboration in that FAST space as it quickly reaches complete saturation, according to Pluto’s international general manager Olivier Jollet.
Jollet said the Paramount Global-owned AVoD service was looking to “reinvent” itself for a new stage of growth after hitting the 10-year anniversary of its launch earlier this year. “When we started, FAST was new, everyone wanted to go into that business and every single content provider was trying to launch their own FAST channels. Now it’s time for a change – more collaboration, more consolidation in the industry,” he told delegates.
AI continues to loom large, with the industry veering between it being an existential threat or a potential tool in its salvation.
After something bordering on outright terror about the tech at last week’s Wildscreen Natural History event in Bristol, this week it’s been very much more ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’.
ITV in the UK is set to appoint its first head of generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) innovation as it seeks to increase its use of the tech at ITV Studios and streaming service ITVX.While AI is providing a whole new genre of content buyer looking to hoover up content libraries to train their models on.
Dave Davis, co-founder and CEO of US-based Calliope Networks and a former exec at NBCUniversal and Paramount, aggregates and licenses audiovisual works to AI companies for model training in deals similar to the recent agreement between US studio Lionsgate and AI firm Runway.
“Right now, rights holders are in kind of the worst-case scenario. A lot of your content is being used by companies for model training and you’re not being compensated for it,” said Davis.
“You can ignore this, which is probably a bad idea. You can sue people, which may be a good idea, here or there. That’s not the business we’re in. Or you can engage with AI companies. We think that’s probably the best approach in most cases.”

Worldwide deals for AI model training rights currently being done by Calliope Networks include a one-year period that allows AI companies to use the content for training, at a cost of US$6.25 per minute for HD content. Davis said there are premiums on top of that for 4K and animation. This would value the entire HD catalogue of a distribution giant such as Banijay, which claims a portfolio of some 190,000 hours, at around US$71m.
But there were also traditional companies in Cannes this week looking to do traditional licensing deals for their content, albeit not from where you’d expect. A decade ago the idea of a US indie travelling from Minneapolis to Cannes with a library of programmes they own would have been unthinkable – US cable took 100% of the rights and used the producers on a work for hire basis of course.
As that cable model teeters on the brink of collapse, and channels find their content budgets challenged just as the costs of making the shows go up, so US indies are finding they get to keep some back end – or have to go out and find 60% (cough, 80%) of the budget elsewhere. So you do now have people like Intuitive Content’s Patrick Weiland dipping their toes in the Med to find out what all this Mipcom business is about. They brought a new Andrew Zimmern project to market, which actually started with a conversation at the opening night party of last year’s Mipcom.
“We’re finding ways to have a piece of the action, own our IP and get involved in international distribution,” Weiland told C21. “We’ve shot a dozen international series now, all over the world. Everything we do now we have some form of back end in it. If we had not done that and made that change then we would not be in business now.
“We’re looking for international partners to scale what we’re doing. We’ve already gotten interest in taking a stake in the business to help us scale. We have something good here, we’re built for the FAST channel world, we’re open for business.”
There’s been a lot of “it’s fucked, we’re fucked, you’re fucked” prophecies through 2024. It’s almost been an arms race for who can make the most doom-laden prediction. Enough misery. There was a sense in Cannes this week of ‘okay, it’s bad, we get it, but what do we do about it?’