LONDON TV SCREENINGS: The trend for broadcasters to put their channels – and even entire catalogues – on streamers is hurting the traditional distribution sector, argues Louise Pedersen, CEO of All3Media International.

Louise Pedersen

Leading independent distributor All3Media International is seeing strong demand for coproductions, says its CEO Louise Pedersen, but fees remain weak, while distributors are being disadvantaged in a market that is being disrupted by the growing trend in strategic partnerships between broadcasters and streamers.

All3Media International is one of the founders of the London TV Screenings (LTVS). It is showcasing a number of premium dramas to buyers at the event this week, which Pedersen says have secured “strong copro-type presales.” They include BritBox which has boarded Gone, the ITV psychological drama written by George Kay (Long Shadow, The Hijack, Lupin) and starring Eva Myles and David Morrissey.

“George Kay is a huge writing talent, ITV were in, and David Morrissey was cast and [BritBox] could read I think four scripts at [the point they came on board]. So that was brilliant,” says Pedersen, who revealed other Gone deals at LTVS this week.

Careless, a thriller produced by Synchronicity Films (The Tattooist of Auschwitz) and Easy Tiger Productions (Colin From Accounts) for Australian streamer Stan and UK broadcaster Channel 4 is another example, says the exec, as is The Assassin from All3Media label Two Brother Pictures.

The latter series, starring Keeley Hawes, has been recommissioned for a second season and has Stan onboard again, as well as ZDF in Germany and Prime Video in the UK. All3Media International will be hoping to match the strong sales it closed on season one of the crime thriller, which covered five continents. Pedersen says coproduction partnerships add validation to a project, which is increasingly important in a more risk-averse buyer market: “You’ve got your original broadcaster and then there’s the fact that someone else has come on board as well. So other buyers think it’s interesting because it’s got a number of partners already.”

Gone was written by George Kay and starred Eva Myles and David Morrissey

However, she notes that coproduction fees have decreased significantly and “the big fees” that helped a distributor recoup its investment quickly are rare. “The very high coproduction prices that we were seeing five years ago, the fees have come down,” she says.

Despite this, Pedersen explains there are offsetting advantages in today’s market: “The upside is that buyers are giving us a bit more flexibility around rights and around windows, so there might be a shorter exclusive period and we might be able to do a second-window deal, and a third-window deal.”

She acknowledges that while the financial model has changed, the revenue comes through multiple windows over time: “We are seeing a very healthy long tail and so the investment is coming back. It’s just taking longer,” she explains.

Nevertheless, a growing trend whereby broadcasters are placing their content – and in some cases their entire channels – directly on to SVoD platforms, is leaving distributors out of pocket and needs to be addressed in a fair and equitable way, Pedersen argues.

As broadcasters worldwide see their audiences erode, some are choosing to collaborate with streamers that they once viewed as competitors. Last summer, for example, ITV and Disney+ entered into a “first-of-its-kind” strategic relationship that curates a selection of titles from each service on the other’s service under the brands Taste of ITVX on Disney+ and Taste of Disney+ on ITVX.

Other examples include Amazon Prime and France Télévisions deal last summer means the French public broadcaster’s streaming service, France.tv, is available directly on Prime Video in France.

And in a deal that is causing most consternation among distributors because of its wider implications, Netflix and TF1 have entered a partnership that from summer of 2026 will mean the streamer carries French commercial broadcaster TF1’s live TV channels and TF1+ streaming app content. It will mark the first time Netflix will deliver live 24/7 channels on its streaming service.

Keeley Hawes stars in The Assassin from All3Media label Two Brother Pictures

Though none of these deals are the same, they all have ramifications for the windowing of content and how distributors recoup their advances against those rights. As one French distributor put it to C21, when the Netflix/TF1 deal was first announced, “it felt like the end of distribution” because it ran the risk of killing “the second, third and fourth window” of a catalogue.

Pedersen says producers and distributors are currently locked into terms of trade with broadcasters that dictate the minimum rights the latter require as part of a commission and the holdback periods. These, however, do not take into account the changing landscape.

“At the moment, we are prevented from doing quite a lot of [SVoD] deals for quite a long period of time because of the terms of trade, or because some of the broadcasters’ attitude towards advertising on SAVoD,” says the exec, referring to advertising tiers now offered by subscription/advertising video-on-demand streamers, such as Netflix.

While she says she’s “encouraged by the fact that, in theory, there seems to be a bit more openness to considering partnering with secondary platforms,” she points out that “distributors are advancing against [those rights] and should be able to do those deals or receive some kind of compensation for those deals.

“The principle of sharing rights is good, but you can’t have the money twice,” she says. “You can’t have it from the distributor that has acquired UK secondary rights and not then allow them to exploit it.”

Pedersen and her team will be welcoming hundreds of buyers to their showcase at LTVS this week, which she describes as “the market of the year” for All3Media International. She anticipates around 500 scripted buyers, 300 format buyers and 450 unscripted buyers to pass through the distributor’s screening doors at London’s Odeon Leicester Square. They will include not just linear buyers from all over the world, but OTT buyers from across SVoD, AVoD and FAST markets.

“It’s a really good range of buyers that come through town and just having them to ourselves for a bit is really good,” she explains.