London TV Screenings: The key takeaways

By Diane Rankin 01-03-2024

LONDON SCREENINGS: Diane Rankin runs through her takeaways from a London TV Screenings taking place this week against a backdrop of mega-merger speculation and economic strife in the industry.

With the world in the midst of a recession, ongoing consolidation across the industry and content spends being cut across the board, the last thing anyone expects me to say is that now is the time to think about growth. But the key is in the art of the deal, which is the main takeaway many of us have leaving London TV Screenings this week; and something I have been reflecting on a lot since joining Blue Ant Media via the company’s acquisition of MarbleMedia last year.

Our industry has always ebbed and flowed. I can’t name a time we ever said this business was easy. But the fact is, the world will always want great programming to watch; buyers will always need to meet their consumer demands and our industry is full of wildly talented creatives more than happy to deliver. That’s not going to change. What has changed are budgets and the ability to raise financing, and my impression this week is that the industry is willing to get super creative and more flexible on how to do this than ever before.

Joining a hybrid media company like Blue Ant, that has domestic linear channels, production, distribution and a growing global footprint in FAST and VOD, from a business like MarbleMedia, my meetings at London Screenings this year have allowed me to think much bigger. The opportunities run deeper with a company that brings original IP, expertise in rights management, co-financing capabilities spanning distribution, co-production in Canada, optioning formats, content licensing and our offerings in global FAST and Canadian pay TV. It was very evident this week that being able to align deals across all of these operations allows us to provide real solutions for our clients and we are creating true partnerships.

We are all looking to create long-term value and to forge returning partnerships and it was really beneficial to connect with so many like-minded execs looking for new ways to get things done in this game and being open to a dialogue of change. From windowing to sharing rights and IP to flexibility in back-end positions, collaboration is the way we are going to grow and there is a collective will to work together so all boats float.

Davey & Jonesie’s Locker offers an excellent example of collaboration

More and more, I am seeing partnerships between companies you may not expect to work together. Our original, teen and YA scripted project, Davey & Jonesie’s Locker, serves as an excellent example, with co-commissioners Hulu (for USA) and Prime Video (for Canada, Australia and New Zealand) teaming up to get this wonderful series, from creator, EP and showrunner, Evany Rosen, to YA audiences around the globe. Managing the many creative needs of these partnerships requires a lot of skill, scale and talent, but we are up to the challenge and have the expertise and resources to deliver.

Furthermore, buyers who typically sought global rights in the past are seeing the benefit of rights flexibility and windowing, helping to eliminate obstacles for producers to get their creative projects off the ground. We had many of these conversations this week. The emphasis is now on strategic collaboration, where securing a prominent debut in one or two markets can be the priority, allowing for other partners to join the party. This benefits everyone – there is a path to financing projects that we are passionate about: buyers get the content they need at a lower cost; producers get their project seen around the world; and there is a greater opportunity of achieving more downstream revenue and building brand value.

London TV Screenings really is a perfect time to build on these kinds of partnerships and to establish new ones. It has the right structure and vibe for building our business at Blue Ant and yes, it’s a hectic week, but there are amazing opportunities here to have meaningful, creative conversations about how we can make TV gold with budgets that are tighter than our schedules.