Stop, collaborate and listen: weathering the storm through coproduction

By Siobhan Crawford 20-09-2024

Will the current trend for coproduction become a tangible fix for the industry’s downturn?

Cooperation, coproduction and co-development. Oh those sexy little words. No. Not really… but as you all want to keep shouting them out loud, let’s talk about them.

Firstly, the why? Because when nothing is going right in our own corner of the world, we look outward, encouraging others to jump into our little pool with co-development, juicy tax incentives and hubs. I get it. We are optimists, problem solvers and hustlers, but is this really a tangible fix during the industry downturn? Let’s dive in.

Back-to-back productions, production synergies, hub productions, coproductions… there are many reasons for these collaborative efforts (mostly money related) but it can be a business model.

If you consider how Banijay willed The Summit into commission in multiple countries, it was because of the convenience, production know-how and cost of creating a hub in both Sweden and Australia. This is the same way Warner willed The Wheel into production with a Spanish hub for a fraction of the cost.

We then have Fox leading the charge to get production out of the US and over to Ireland to reduce the price point for all shows through their partnership with Biggerstage. Then for revenue generation and creative control you have Talpa bringing licensees to coproduce The Floor in Laren in the Netherlands. We have Acun Medya being strategic with an exotic touch in their service hub in Dominican Republic, plus the base for production of their own formats – licence fee plus hub production costs. Smart.

Stranded on Honeymoon Island a beacon for coproduction

And we can further the savings when we partner with companies based in tax incentive and tax shelter countries, the most infamous now is Australia at 40%. If you can minimise costs, or share costs, and/or maximise revenues by getting licence fees plus production revenues, then you can see why people are talking about it. Or trying to will their own hubs into existence.

But if you think format sales are hard, setting up multiple interlinked commissions is like spinning magic. And to keep your hub active you need to be speaking to everyone all the time to keep the hub capacity up. Surely the logic is you have to create a dynamic hub that is a one stop shop with tax incentives with a strategic partner like Fox to keep funnelling in business? But how many companies are ready to shift into that beast mode to help the cost-conscious industry?

Everywhere in the world (outside Spain) commissioning is down but when it does happen it is taking more hands than it used to, and more time. Take this example; Stranded on Honeymoon Island – it took a Danish development, Belgian premiere and German RedArrow sale to get this commissioned at the BBC. Talk about a long journey.

Another; if you need Kinetic and Talpa to join forces to announce they are ‘trying’ to sell a format into the US (Watch your Back/SBS6), then clearly the time for sharing has become a necessity, rather than a choice. Co-develop, co-own… and the big one… co-market with your big brands to get sales made.

It hurts that we can’t make it on our own but a month after Edinburgh Festival, when the industry was told there are too many prodcos for the size of the UK market (then four new ones open straight after!), you realise cooperation may be the only way to make it to 2025.

But this means sharing the IP, the credit, the revenue, and can we do that? I am curious if this new path of cooperation is one we will enjoy together because for all the times we have heard the phrase ‘better to have x percent of something, than 0% of nothing’ very few people actually enjoy owning less than 50% of their own format, or giving away 10-35% of backend to a collaborator!

And only recently did I hear the phrase ‘lazy distributor’ at a conference to explain away how everything is possible if you believe in your idea. No. It will take a village to make your success, but make sure you quality-check all those involved because I think few people are truly skilled at making magic happen and too many people claim to be magicians in our industry.

What we are talking about here is not standard distribution, this is strategy with a lot of moving parts. This is finding solutions by identifying opportunities or gaps in the market. There are no sales targets to hit here, we are trying to get ahead in an industry by thinking differently or, hell, just to try something when the old way is used by too many other people.

But not all people in our industry can support this creative thinking and it is vital you find the right people to cooperate with. I cannot say it often enough, you cannot be a specialist in everything in every country, seek out the real specialists!

Mipcom launches are expected to be light as the big groups hoard their big launches till London Screenings, so use Mipcom wisely.

And your anthem: Shakira Try Everything, because sure as hell you will have to from here on out.

And do not miss the next column as we will have the complete pre-Mipcom round up of launches (with commentary). It will be the best thing in front of a paywall you have ever seen.